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The Partnership forecasts the Houston metro area will create 76,000 new jobs next year. That’s down from nearly 96,000 jobs created in the twelve months ending this past October. But vice president of research Patrick Jankowski calls it a very good growth rate for Houston.

“A lot of other metropolitan areas would die to have that sort of job creation.”

To maintain such job growth over the long term, Jankowski says that the city and its business community must invest in improvements to education.

“Houston has been able to import workers — meaning we pull people out of California, we pull people out of Michigan, we pull people out of New York. We can’t continue to rely on that. We need to work more and more on our local education system, so we can grow the workers that we need.”

The Partnership says several factors will drive Houston’s job growth next year, including stable oil prices and a rebound in home construction. The forecast assumes Congress will reach an accord on spending cuts and tax increases — if not soon, then in early 2013.