According to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) provisional estimates, in July 2003 the seasonally adjusted civilian labor force in Texas numbered 11,008,800, with approximately 721,800 workers unemployed, yielding an unemployment rate of 6.6%, compared to the national average of 6.2% for the same period. Since the beginning of the BLS data series in 1978, the highest unemployment rate recorded was 9.4% in October 1986. The historical low was 3.8% in December 2000. In 2001, an estimated 6.5% of the labor force was employed in construction; 11.8% in manufacturing; 6.7% in transportation, communications, and public utilities; 20.3% in trade; 5.4% in finance, insurance, and real estate; 22.9% in services; 14.4% in government; and 2.9% in agriculture.
Organized labor has never been able to establish a strong base in Texas, and a state right-to-work law continues to make unionization difficult. The earliest national union, the Knights of Labor, declined in Texas after failing to win a strike against the railroads in 1886 when the Texas Rangers served as strike breakers. That same year, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) began to organize workers along craft lines. One of the more protracted and violent disputes in Texas labor history occurred in 1935 when longshoremen struck Gulf coast ports for 62 days. The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) succeeded in organizing oil-field and maritime workers during the 1930s.
The US Department of Labor reported that in 2002, 451,000 of Texas's 8,818,000 employed wage and salary workers were members of unions. This represented 5.1% of those so employed, down from 5.5% in 2001 and 5.9% in 1998. The national average is 13.2%. Texas (the 2nd most populous state) had less than one-fourth as many union members as New York (the 3rd largest), despite having nearly one million more wage and salary employees. In all, 571,000 workers (6.5%) were represented by unions. In addition to union members, this category includes workers who report no union affiliation but whose jobs are covered by a union contract. Texas is one of 22 states with a right-to-work law.