Marking the largest market to return to pre-pandemic employment levels, Dallas has regained all the jobs lost over the last 18 months. In fact, Dallas now has 1,000 more jobs than the market had in February 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic took its toll on the national job market. After hitting a low point of about 2.5 million jobs in April 2020, Dallas has seen its employment outlook improve nearly every month. Then, after the seasonal high of the holidays burned off, consistent improvement returned in 2021. August marked the first month that total employment stood above the February 2020 rate, coming in at over 2.7 million jobs. Other major markets that have returned to pre-pandemic employment levels include Salt Lake City, Austin and Kansas City. However, the Dallas job base is nearly three times as large the workforce in each of those markets.
