Gov. Rick Perry recently announced that Texas was the number one exporting state in the nation for the eighth year in a row during 2009. Texas’ strong economic environment – which is created by low taxes, a reasonable and predictable regulatory climate, and a skilled and educated workforce – were credited for the state’s achievement.

“Texas leads the nation in so many positive categories, from Fortune 500 companies to job creation, and we owe it to our citizens to continue our economic success by adhering to our proven fiscal disciplines,” Perry said during the North Houston Economic Outlook Annual Symposium.

“Our principled leadership has created an environment that allows us to compete for jobs, investment and business, and defend the economic climate that has made Texas the top exporting state in the nation for the eighth straight year,” he continued.

All of the exports from Texas brought in more than $163 billion last year. The top export recipients were Mexico at $56 billion, Canada at $13.7 billion, China at $8.9 billion, the Netherlands at $6 billion and Korea at $5.3 billion.

The top exporting industries during 2009 were: computers and electronics, chemicals, machinery, petroleum and coal, and transportation equipment.

Officials have credited the Texas Enterprise Fund with helping to attract businesses, jobs and investment to the state, and the Texas Emerging Technology Fund with moving millions of dollars through the Houston Technology Center into young companies whose technologies began in university laboratories around the state.

The Texas Workforce Commission recently reported that Affiliated Computer Services Inc. has laid off 181 employees from one of its Houston facilities. This is a surprising move, as the company recently added 120 positions in Houston when local clients began seeing more business.

According to reports from the Houston Chronicle and Houston Business Journal, officials at the company, which performs outsourcing services for other companies, said the job cuts were “due to lack of work.”

About 101 of the positions eliminated were in telemarketing, while the remaining 73 were in customer care. All workers who lost their jobs will be offered 60 days of severance pay and benefits, as well as outplacement assistance.

The facility hit during this round of layoffs, which has long served as the company’s customer service and sales operation for an unnamed client, is one of four that Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services Inc. operates in Houston.

The company currently employs about 1,300 workers in the Houston area and 34,000 customer service agents in 150 call centers throughout the world.

During September, Xerox announced its plan to acquire Affiliated Computer Services Inc., creating a $22 billion global corporation.

The job cuts will most likely have a negative impact on the Houston area’s already-declining professional and business services industry.

That industry employed 366,900 workers during November, according to the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is down from 367,100 workers during October and a 4.5 percent decrease from last year.

However, the area’s overall economy remains strong. During November, the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown area saw its unemployment rate decrease from 8.5 percent to 8.2 percent, which is lower than the national unemployment rate of 10 percent.

The area had a total non-farm employment of 2,534,900 workers during November, up from 2,525,600 workers during October, but a 3.4 percent decrease from last year.

The Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach area’s education and health services industry employed 94,600 workers during September, according to the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is up from 94,100 workers during August, but a .4 percent decrease from last year.

As a whole, the healthcare industry includes offices of physicians, dentists and other health practitioners; outpatient care centers; medical and diagnostic laboratories and home healthcare services; other ambulatory healthcare services and hospitals. Of the 15 largest occupations in the industry, nine provide direct patient care.

During 2007, Florida’s healthcare industry included 39,744 establishments that employed 669,154 workers, up 18,205 jobs from 2006. The majority of the increase in jobs came from general medical and surgical hospitals, which added 6,460 employees, making for a 2.3 percent increase, and offices of physicians, which added 4,916 employees, making for a 3.1 percent increase.

The largest healthcare sectors during 2007 were general medical and surgical hospitals, with 285,798 jobs, and offices of physicians, with 164,792 jobs. According to an article by the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation, those two industries combined account for 67 percent of employment in the healthcare industry.

The most popular healthcare occupations are registered nurses, nursing aides, licensed practical and licensed vocational nurses, medical assistants and home health aides. These five occupations account for about 32.6 percent of all employment in the healthcare industry.

The average salary for all workers in the healthcare industry that year was $49,804 per year, which is higher than the average annual salary for all industries in Florida. Registered nurses earn an average salary of $29.52 per hour or $61,402 per year. Among the 15 largest occupations, salaries range from a low of $10.29 per hour for home health aides to a high of $36.02 per hour for physical therapists.

This percentage translates to approximately 613,000 employable people who can not find jobs in Florida. This is the highest unemployment rate the state has had in 14 years, according to the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation.

The current Floridian unemployment rate is 2.4 percentage points higher than it was a year ago and .5 percent higher than the national average.

“I’m surprised it stayed steady,” Bruce Nissen told a reporter from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Nissen, who is an economist at Florida International Unviersity, went on to say that residents shouldn’t get overconfident. He expects the unemployment rate to resume rising before this year is finished.

According to University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith, unemployment statistics are a lagging economic indicator.

“We haven’t seen the worse…We can expect many more jobs lost as the U.S. economy slips into recession,” said Snaith.

Over the course of the last 12 months, 115,500 jobs in Florida have been lost, excluding those in the agricultural sector. Out of these positions, 75,200 positions were in the construction industry, which has been hit hard by the slump in the housing market and the rising foreclosure rate.

Other sectors that have lost a large number of jobs in Florida include manufacturing, retail, professional and business services, financial activities and administration and waste services.

The struggling job market has been particularly difficult on individuals with a long history of work who have only been employed in one industry. Since these people only know how to do one type of work, their options are particularly slim when their industry of choice begins to suffer.

The downtown Providence Hampton Inn & Suites, which is expected to open in December, received approximately 5,000 applications for 50 to 55 new jobs. With unemployment in the state reaching 8.8 percent last month, many drastically need work.

These new jobs will pay anywhere from $9 to $15 an hour. If the state’s economy was better, positions such as the ones with this hotel would not draw as much attention. In order to be able to pay their bills, many will take whatever work they can get, which means that Rhode Island probably has a huge portion of its population that would qualify as underemployed. Out of the 5,000 people who applied, the Hampton Inn & Suites interviewed around 1,200.

According to Michael Buddenmeyer, the regional director of hotel operations for Fall River’s First Bristol Corp., 45 of the new jobs will be full-time positions. The other 5 to 10 will be part-time jobs. All will offer what is considered to be mid-level pay for positions in hotel operations in Rhode Island.

Buddenmeyer said that, given the state of the economy, he had expected to receive a large number of resumes, but had no idea he would be sifting through 5,000 applications. In order to make to be able to even manage such a huge number of applicants, he said that he started by eliminating everyone that did not have previous experience working in a hotel.

Instead of hiring the exact number of people he needed, Buddenmeyer said that he selected a few extra individuals to make up for those that would decide to quit sometime during the several month long training sessions. For example, he hired 16 individuals to work the front desk, even though he only expects to need somewhere around 12. Already, he says, the number of workers training for the front desk positions has dropped to 14.