Wichita Falls
at the margin.

## Labor Market Conditions — Wichita Falls

The Wichita Falls labor market is in equilibrium, holding steady with no meaningful shift in either direction. Employment grew just 0.17% over the past year — essentially flat — and momentum is holding steady rather than building or fading. This is a market that is neither tightening nor slipping; it has found a resting point.

The more notable movement is on the unemployment side, where the rate has declined close to 8% year-over-year. That improvement is worth watching: when employment headcount is nearly unchanged but unemployment is falling, it typically signals that workers are leaving the labor force rather than finding new jobs — a dynamic common in smaller metros with aging populations or limited in-migration. Wichita Falls fits that profile. The net result is a market that looks calmer on the surface than the underlying workforce dynamics may warrant (Fig. 1).