Texas Drone Delivery?

Welcome to the drone zone: Unmanned aircraft may be headed to Texas

As the Federal Aviation Administration decides which six states will serve as testing grounds for unmanned aerial aircraft systems — or drones, as they are more commonly known — the state of Texas has its hand raised high. And, no, we're not talking about Amazon Prime Air.

Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, home to the state's unmanned aircraft "command and control center," is touting a new, sprawling drone plan with a flurry of press releases. The A&M Lone Star Unmanned Aircraft Systems Initiative proposes a series of 11 test regions that will cover about 6,000 square miles across the state.

Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi has debuted a sprawling drone plan for the Lone Star State.

But not so fast, said residents of Alpine, a university town located in the Big Bend region of West Texas, home to about half of the proposed test mileage. As has been widely reported in state and local news outlets, concerned citizens shot down the proposal to launch test drones from their municipal airport in a packed town hall meeting on November 16, leaving the initiative in search of a new launch site.

That thumbs-down caused little concern among unmanned aircraft supporters. Even if Texas isn't chosen as an official FAA site, we have options, explains Dr. Luis Cifuentes, the Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi vice president of research, commercialization and outreach, in yet another press release.

"We still have airspace that everyone else wants, and we will partner with anybody who wants to test in it," he said.

Meanwhile, the citizens of Alpine are right to be concerned. Here in Texas — as opposed to pretty much every other state that has restricted drone use by law enforcement — lawmakers are more concerned with what we the people might do with unmanned aircrafts than it is with protecting citizens from the rising specter of Big Brother.

Legislation passed in September outlines restrictions that allow for unwarranted surveillance of civilians by an increasingly militarized police force, yet ensures that corporate oil pipelines are protected from the unmanned roving eyes of environmental groups.

In the face of the almighty dollar, in other words, the Bill of Rights doesn't stand a chance — at least in Texas.

Despite a thumbs-down vote by the citizens of Alpine, Texas A&M is pumped about drone testing in West Texas.

Texas A&M-Corpus Christi

Despite a thumbs-down vote by the citizens of Alpine, Texas A&M is pumped about drone testing in West Texas.

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Jobs report

Texas ranks among 10 best states to find a job, says new report

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

You have a better chance of landing a job in Texas than in most other states.

If you’re hunting for a job in Texas amid a tough employment market, you stand a better chance of landing it here than you might in other states.

A new ranking by personal finance website WalletHub of the best states for jobs puts Texas at No. 7. The Lone Star State lands at No. 2 in the economic environment category and No. 18 in the job market category.

Massachusetts tops the list, and West Virginia appears at the bottom.

To determine the most attractive states for employment, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 34 key indicators of economic health and job market strength. Ranking factors included employment growth, median annual income, and average commute time.

“Living in one of the best states for jobs can provide stable conditions for the long term, helping you ride out the fluctuations that the economy will experience in the future,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo says.

In September, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Texas led the U.S. in job creation with the addition of 195,600 jobs over the past 12 months.

While Abbott proclaimed Texas is “America’s jobs leader,” the state’s level of job creation has recently slowed. In June, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas noted that the state’s year-to-date job growth rate had dipped to 1.8 percent, and that even slower job growth was expected in the second half of this year.

The August unemployment rate in Texas stood at 4.1 percent, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Throughout 2025, the monthly rate in Texas has been either four percent or 4.1 percent.

By comparison, the U.S. unemployment rate in August was 4.3 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2025, the monthly rate for the U.S. has ranged from 4 percent to 4.3 percent.

Here’s a rundown of the August unemployment rates in Texas’ four biggest metro areas:

Austin — 3.9 percent
Dallas-Fort Worth — 4.4 percent
San Antonio — 4.4 percent
Houston — 5 percent

Unemployment rates have remained steady this year despite layoffs and hiring freezes driven by economic uncertainty. However, the number of U.S. workers who’ve been without a job for at least 27 weeks has risen by 385,000 this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in August. That month, long-term unemployed workers accounted for about one-fourth of all unemployed workers.

An August survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed a record-low 44.9 percent of Americans were confident about finding a job if they lost their current one.

This story originally was published on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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