"Despite being the nation's fastest-growing big city in 2023, new data shows San Antonio lost jobs that year for the first time in decades. It was a notable shift: The city had been a jobs magnet for most of the previous 20-plus years, consistently attracting more workers than it lost since 2001 - even weathering and bouncing back quickly from economic downturns like the recession of 2008."
"Because employment data tracks where jobs are based and not where workers actually live, remote workers moving to San Antonio could boost population tallies without adding to the local employment pool. Combined with the regular flow of San Antonio-based workers pulling up stakes for work in other Texas metros, that could help drive the loss. The data suggest San Antonio's worker losses came primarily from a reversal in out-of-state migration patterns."
"The Express-News' analysis uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau to explore job movement in the San Antonio metropolitan area. The net job flow, calculated by subtracting departures from arrivals, shows positive numbers when more people are coming to San Antonio for work and negative numbers when more are leaving. This census data is reported quarterly, but we examined annual aggregates from 2001 to 2023, the latest full year of data available."
San Antonio experienced a net loss of jobs in 2023, reversing a two-decade trend of employment gains since 2001. Remote work growth allowed people to move to San Antonio for affordability and quality of life while holding jobs based elsewhere, boosting population without increasing local employment. Employment data records job location, not worker residence, so remote hires can inflate population figures while leaving local job counts unchanged. Worker exchanges with Houston, Dallas and Austin have varied, and 2023 saw a reversal in out-of-state migration that previously supplied steady worker inflows. Net job flow calculations use arrivals minus departures. Data span 2001–2023.
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