Workforce Alamo Solutions CEO says San Antonio’s unemployment rate near pre-pandemic level

Adrian Lopez, CEO of Workforce Solutions Alamo, joined Leading SA on Sunday

SAN ANTONIO – A total of 4.3 million people in the U.S. quit their jobs in August this year, according to the Labor Department. It’s being called, “the great resignation.”

The latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor’s statistics show the unemployment rate nationwide is 4.8%.

Adrian Lopez, CEO of Workforce Solutions Alamo, joined Leading SA on Sunday to talk about employment trends being seen in and around San Antonio.

“Posting a 4.8% unemployment rate, which is pretty close to 3.5% pre-pandemic levels. We’re actually seeing an increase in our labor force as opposed to people dropping off,” Lopez said.

There are job openings in most local job industries, especially leisure and hospitality.

“The full recovery of those is actually not anticipated to about 2024, 2025, but they still have tons of positions that are actually still vacant even today,” Lopez said.

And if anyone is looking for a job, there are plenty of openings.

“Today we have about 47,000 openings based on the databases that we actually see, depending on what particular industries. I mean, you know, one from the perspective of hospitality, you know, that could affect our ability to serve the different types of conventions and stuff that we see coming to the city. That’s on a one and a manufacturing side. If we are not producing products that are actually going to be something that’s on the shelves of our goods and those that could affect obviously the supply line associated with products that we tend to see, you know, on a daily basis,” Lopez said.

But with all the openings, it is getting competitive to bring in talent. USAA just increased their minimum wage to $21.

“We’ve seen employers across many different industries increase their salaries, right? We don’t know the full effect of that, but we do know is a fact that you know, in employees or job seekers actually now have a lot of options. So the market to actually secure those, those employees are their job seekers actually just got much tighter,” Lopez said.

Lopez said there is a job fair that is happening in just a couple of weeks.

“We’re very excited about our 10th annual ‘Red, White and You Job Fair,’ which is a statewide hiring event along with Texas Workforce Commission that’s being hosted on November 4th from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Freeman Coliseum,” Lopez said.

You can watch the full interview with Lopez in the video player above.


About the Author:

Max Massey is the GMSA weekend anchor and a general assignments reporter. Max has been live at some of the biggest national stories out of Texas in recent years, including the Sutherland Springs shooting, Hurricane Harvey and the manhunt for the Austin bomber. Outside of work, Max follows politics and sports, especially Penn State, his alma mater.