Labor Market
Employers in the Houston region filed just three layoff notices with the Texas Workforce Commission in the third quarter of 2026, covering 356 workers. In the same three months of 2025, they filed 19 notices covering 2,750 workers.
The figures come from the commission’s public spreadsheet of notices filed under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act. The Houston Chronicle reported the 356 and 2,750 totals on Tuesday, Oct. 20. A count of the spreadsheet confirms both: they are the sums of the workers reported in every notice the commission lists for its Gulf Coast workforce development area, which covers Houston and surrounding counties, with a notice date from July 1 through Sept. 30. Counting only the nine counties of the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands metro area gives the same totals for both years.
The three notices
Baker Hughes Co. filed the largest notice on July 1. It covers 174 workers at a Houston site in Harris County, with a layoff date of July 1. Showcase Window and Door filed on July 21, reporting 61 workers in Missouri City in Fort Bend County, with a layoff date of Sept. 21. New Tech Global Staffing filed on Sept. 11, reporting 121 workers in Houston, with a layoff date of Oct. 30. According to the Chronicle, the cuts at New Tech Global Staffing followed recruiter Airswift’s purchase of several New Tech Global divisions, a deal that did not include the staffing unit.
A year earlier, the third quarter was much heavier. A notice listed under Chevron Corp. and Hess Corp. covered 575 workers on July 21, 2025. Southwest Key Programs filed four notices on July 31, 2025, for four Houston facilities, together covering 981 workers. CyraCom International filed one for 327 workers on Sept. 4, 2025.
Year to date
From January through September 2026, the Gulf Coast area logged 24 notices covering 3,053 workers. The same nine months of 2025 produced 56 notices covering 4,468 workers. One June 2025 notice lists no worker count and adds nothing to that total. By quarter, 2026 notices covered 807 workers in the first quarter, 1,890 in the second and 356 in the third. For all of 2025, the area recorded 69 notices covering 5,173 workers.
Unemployment fell, but payrolls slipped
The Texas Workforce Commission’s Oct. 16 release put the Houston metro unemployment rate at 4.6% in September, down from 5.0% in August and from 4.8% in September 2025. These metro rates are not seasonally adjusted. The number of unemployed residents fell to about 180,100 from 194,300 in August, while the labor force held near 3.93 million.
Payroll data were less upbeat. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates for the metro area, also not seasonally adjusted, show 3,489,400 nonfarm jobs in September. That is 7,300 fewer than in August but 33,600, or about 1%, more than a year earlier. Leisure and hospitality lost 7,300 jobs from August, and professional and business services lost 3,900. Some of the September drop in leisure and hospitality usually reflects the end of the summer season, and the figures are preliminary.
Construction has been the strongest sector over the year. Houston-area construction employment reached 269,300 in September, up 13,800 jobs, or 5.4%, from September 2025, even though it slipped by 400 from August. Manufacturing, at 240,100 jobs, was roughly flat from a year earlier.
Statewide, Texas lost 11,100 jobs in September but was up 154,300, or 1.1%, over the year, the commission said. The state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 4.4%.
What WARN counts miss
The drop in WARN notices is a real signal that large planned cuts have slowed in the Houston area. It is not a count of all layoffs. The federal law generally applies to employers with 100 or more full-time workers. It requires notice for plant closings that affect at least 50 workers at a single site, and for mass layoffs that affect at least 50 workers who make up a third of a site’s workforce, or at least 500 workers. Smaller cuts, cuts at smaller firms and staggered reductions often never appear on the list.
The list is also sorted by the date each notice was filed. A notice records planned job losses, which can take effect weeks later or be revised. The commission keeps updating its 2026 file; the version available on Oct. 20 included notices dated through Oct. 7. The commission’s next monthly labor market release is scheduled for Nov. 20.
Sources
- Texas Workforce Commission, “WARN Notices” (2026 and 2025 WARN Act listings, Excel), accessed October 20, 2026. https://www.twc.texas.gov/data-reports/warn-notice
- Texas Workforce Commission, “Texas Annual Growth Rate Outpaces Nation as Labor Force Adds 15,800,” October 16, 2026. https://www.twc.texas.gov/news/texas-annual-growth-rate-outpaces-nation-labor-force-adds-15800
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX, Construction, All Employees (SMU48264202000000001),” State and Area Employment, Hours, and Earnings, accessed October 20, 2026. https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/SMU48264202000000001
- Houston Chronicle (Erica Grieder), “Only 3 Houston companies have reported layoffs since July. Here’s why.,” October 20, 2026. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/houston-layoffs-jobs-wages-22476988.php
- Legal Information Institute, “29 U.S. Code § 2101 – Definitions; exclusions from definition of loss of employment.” https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/29/2101
Featured photo: The Texas Workforce Commission building in Austin, Texas, photographed in August 2019. The commission publishes the state’s WARN notice list and metro labor data; this is not a Houston site. Photo: Michael Barera, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Cropped from the original.
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