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Dallas booms as a top U.S. hot spot for startups, says new report

A new report finds both Dallas and Texas rank highly based on startup creation.

Photo by Sean Pavone/iStock

Dallas is a bustling hub for startup activity — and the numbers don't lie. A new ranking from real estate investment marketplace Roofstock places Dallas-Fort Worth at No. 5 among the major U.S. metro areas with the highest rates of startup formation.

Roofstock's ranking, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, puts the DFW's startup formation rate at 9.82 percent. The startup formation rate refers to the number of new businesses in a given year divided by the total number of businesses.

Here's some additional data for the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area:

Number of annual startup formations: 10,731
Number of annual new jobs created by startups: 69,696
Number of jobs created by startups as a share of all new jobs: 15.11 percent

As a matter of fact, the Dallas area's ratio of new business founders to total business founders stood at a healthy 20 percent as of December 2020, according to career website LinkedIn. Also in 2020 and 2019, Dallas-Fort Worth ranked t hird on a list published by residential real estate platform Clever of the most affordable U.S. metros for startups.

"The Texas State Data Center projects the metro to reach almost 8 million by 2025. That influx of residents, along with graduates from DFW’s 40+ colleges, could pave the way for a productive team at any company," Clever says.

Two other Texas metros appear on Roofstock's list — Austin at No. 3 (startup formation rate of 10.61 percent) and Houston at No. 10 (startup formation rate of 9.48 percent).

Here's the additional data for the Austin metro area:

Number of annual startup formations: 3,858
Number of annual new jobs created by startups: 21,357
Number of jobs created by startups as a share of all new jobs: 16.49 percent

Here's the other Houston startup data cited by Roofstock:

Annual number of startup formations: 9,214
Annual number of jobs created by startups: 55,475
Number of jobs created by startups as a share of all new jobs: 14.44 percent

"In the past years, Houston has seen a massive burst in its startup ecosystem. … Houston is one of the best places in the United States for entrepreneurs to launch and grow a business," Houston-based app developer Bixlabs says.

The Las Vegas metro area holds the No. 1 spot on the Roofstock list, with a startup formation rate of 11.44 percent.

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This story originally ran on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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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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