Texas added more than 441,000 jobs from July of 2022 to July of 2023, more than any other state. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says employment here has increased 3.3% over the past year.
As more jobs are created and the state's population increases, business leaders are looking at areas Texas has been successful and how to plan for the future.
During an event organized by the SMU Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center, the head of the Dallas Regional Chamber said 250 companies have moved their headquarters to North Texas over the past 12 years, and the Metroplex has added 1.3 million jobs over that time.
"There's no place like it close in America," Dallas Regional Chamber President and Chief Executive Dale Petroskey said. "It's really a sweet moment in time for Dallas, an incredible period of growth and prosperity."
Pia Orrenius, a senior fellow at SMU's Tower Center for Public Policy and International Affairs and vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said workforce availability would fuel growth long term.
"Even in Texas with so much migration to the state, we still have labor shortages," she said. "Availability of labor is still the number one complaint of businesses here."
She said migration from other states is bringing high-skilled workers; Texas depends on migration from Mexico and Central America to fill jobs in construction and the service sector.
"We've proven we can bring the business investment, but at the end of the day, you also have to have the workforce," she said. "Immigration reform, I mean, it's not rocket science. Politically, it's divisive, but economically, it makes a lot of sense."
The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas says Texas benefits from "nearshoring" as companies move jobs to Mexico to be closer to the end market. The bank says trade through the Port of Laredo has increased 40% over the past ten years, and truck traffic there has jumped six percent this year alone.
"We have a crossborder, codependent manufacturing system, whether it's automakers, electronics or aerospace, these are corporations with factories in Mexico," Orrenius said. "Parts go back and forth, back and forth until they're finally assembled."
The Dallas Regional Chamber's Petroskey says North Texas also benefits from a transportation system that allows people to reach other parts of the country quickly by road, rail and air.
"We have two great airports. DFW Airport is the second busiest airport in the world, and Love Field is the busiest domestic airport," he said.
"What happens here in Texas somehow is magic, and you have to come here to experience it," says Esteban Abascal, chief executive of La Moderna.
La Moderna is a food company that established a U.S. headquarters in Dallas five years ago.
"The decision to establish our business here was a logistics matter," Abascal said. "The Metroplex still is one of the biggest hubs for logistics in the country. For us, it was crucial to think how we were going to be able to pull every source for creating pasta, to bring it in the most cost efficient way into our facility."
The Dallas Fed says trade between the U.S. and Mexico totalled $263 billion in the first four months of 2023 with the U.S. importing $157 billion and exporting $107 billion.
Trade with Mexico represented 15.4% of U.S. trade the first four months of this year passing Canada, which accounted for 15.2%.
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