SAN ANTONIO – Workforce Solutions Alamo reports the San Antonio region added 47,000 new jobs from June 2021 to June 2022, even as the pandemic still lingers and inflation takes its toll.
Adrian Lopez, CEO of Workforce Solutions Alamo, said the area’s job growth reflects what’s happening statewide, with 750,000 more jobs.
Not only did the state regain the jobs lost during the pandemic, but thousands of more jobs were also created, Lopez said.
“There’s a ton of opportunities for people wanting to go back to work,” Lopez said.
With so many more choices, Priscilla Caballero, a third-generation restaurant owner, said even line cooks are still hard to come by these days.
“They’re a lot more sparse,” she said. “It’s tougher, and they want a lot more money than they did in the past.”
Like many other business owners, Caballero said she’s had to raise salaries to stay competitive.
As co-owners of Eddie’s Taco House with two locations and up to 80 employees, Caballero said she and her sister have had to create “a new business plan, a new equation.”
“We used to know what normal is. We don’t know what normal is right now. We’re finding it all out,” she said.
Despite the optimistic job numbers, Caballero said business isn’t what it was before the pandemic.
Tom Tunstall, research director at the UTSA Institute for Economic Development, said the economy “never moves in a straight line.” He said the outlook could change.
Tunstall said San Antonio is in a stronger, more diversified position for future downturns. He said it no longer relies primarily on the hospitality industry and the military presence in San Antonio.
“There’s aerospace. There’s health care, medical, a whole host of financial services, a whole host of other industries that sort of buffer the economy,” Tunstall said.