Private sector jobs lead Valley employment — though county shares vary widely

Key data points: 

• About 2 out of 3 full-time workers in the Valley work in private jobs.
• Across Texas, it’s closer to 3 out of 4.
• In some Valley counties, just over half of workers are in private jobs.
• In others, nearly 7 out of 10 are.
• About 1 in 10 Valley residents runs a business or works for themselves.

By José Luis Martínez

The private sector remains the Rio Grande Valley’s largest employer, but its dominance is thinner here than in the rest of Texas.

Across the state, roughly 75% of year-round, full-time workers are employed in private or nonprofit roles. In the Valley, that figure is just over 67%, according to newly released U.S. Census data.

That gap reflects a regional workforce where government employment plays a larger role than it does statewide.

Of the roughly 391,880 people working year-round full-time jobs in the Valley, about 265,440 worked in the private sector. The rest were employed in government or worked for themselves.

The balance shifts county by county.

In Hidalgo and Cameron counties, just under 70% of full-time workers are in private or nonprofit jobs. In Willacy County, that share is 63%.

Starr County stands apart.

There, just 55% of year-round full-time workers are employed in the private or nonprofit sector — compared with two-thirds across the region.

The change over time is more striking.

In the late 2010s, 69% of Starr County’s workforce was in the private or nonprofit sector. That represents a 14-percentage-point decline.

Willacy County saw a similar drop, falling from 72% to 63%.

Cameron County’s share declined only slightly — about two percentage points — while Hidalgo County recorded a small increase of just over one percentage point.

As the Valley’s workforce expanded over the past decade, government employment grew its share of the overall labor market faster than the private sector — even as private employers continued to account for the majority of workers in raw numbers.

Read more: The Valley leans more on government jobs than most of Texas

The entrepreneurs

Beyond public and private payrolls, another segment shapes the region’s labor market: business owners.

Census estimates show that roughly one in 10 full-time workers in the Rio Grande Valley is self-employed — either through an incorporated business or as a solo operator.

In Hidalgo County in the early 2020s, about 11% of full-time workers were entrepreneurs, slightly down from 12% in the previous period. That translates to roughly 20,600 workers who owned incorporated businesses and another 7,100 who operated as sole proprietors.

In Cameron County, about 9% of full-time workers were self-employed — including roughly 8,300 incorporated business owners and nearly 3,300 solo operators.

Willacy County’s share stood at 8%, with only a few dozen incorporated business owners and a few hundred sole proprietors.

Starr County was the only county to see an increase in entrepreneurship, rising four percentage points to 12%. The number of incorporated business owners grew by several hundred, while sole proprietors increased from roughly 900 to 1,400.