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The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Center for Border Economic Studies (CBEST) has published its Summer 2026 edition of its Border Business Briefs.
The briefs are an examination of the cross-border economy in the Rio Grande Valley and northern Mexico, offering insights into various patterns to help provide a better understanding of which direction the economy is going.
“We examine, in this brief, the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) as a deeply integrated cross-border economy shaped by manufacturing complementarities with northern Mexico and evolving patterns of investment, employment, and wages,” the brief reads. “Recent growth has generated substantial job creation, but employment remains concentrated in comparatively low-paying service occupations.
“At the same time, emerging investments in industry and technology point to gradual economic diversification and the potential expansion of higher-value-added activities in the region.”
The nine-page brief was authored by Francisco Aldape, Maroula Khraiche, Andre V. Mollick, and Jean Baptiste Tondji.
They factor in many variables in order to establish a clearer understanding of the local economy, including the flow of traffic going north and south across the border, the demographics of the populations of the communities that make up South Texas and northern Mexico, and the industrial relationships between the cross-border communities.
With an understanding of the elements that shape the local economy, the authors of the Border Business Brief determined that non-farm employment is continuing to steadily rise in the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission metropolitan area — this after a significant drop during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.
“Following the sharp decline in 2020 associated with COVID-19, total nonfarm employment rebounded rapidly and continued on a sustained upward trajectory, rising from approximately 245,000 at the pandemic low to just over 300,000 by late 2025,” the brief reads.
“This corresponds to an increase of roughly 55,000 to 60,000 jobs, placing employment about 30,000 to 35,000 above its pre-pandemic level of around 270,000,” it continued. “While this recent expansion is somewhat smaller than the cumulative growth observed between 2005 and 2020, the speed of the post-2020 recovery is notably rapid by historical standards, consistent with broader evidence showing that the U.S. labor market rebounded unusually quickly relative to past recessions.”
Another key insight of the brief shows that healthcare support is the largest occupational group in the region, accounting for 17.2% the total employment. The second largest occupational group is office and administrative support with 12.4% of the total employment, followed by food preparation and serving-related occupations and educational instruction and library occupations, which each accounted for 9.4%.
Sales and related occupations accounted for 8.8%, and transportation and material moving occupations made up 7.5%.
According to the brief, the 10 largest occupational groups accounted for 84.0% of employment in the region.
It was also determined that the average hourly wage across all occupations in the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission metropolitan area was $21.54 in May 2024, whereas the average hourly wage was $32.66 nationwide.
Of the main occupational groups previously mentioned, the field of construction and extraction earned the highest average hourly wage with $20.45, followed by sales and related occupations with $17.43.
The three lower-paying occupations of that group were personal care and service with an average hourly wage of $13.92, food preparation and serving related with $13.03, and healthcare support with $12.22 — well below their national average.
“The healthcare-support comparison is particularly important because this was the area’s largest major occupational group, representing 17.2% of employment,” the brief reads. “Higher-paying local groups included management ($46.15), legal occupations ($38.58), and healthcare practitioners and technical occupations ($37.88), but their employment shares were 5.5%, 0.5%, and 6.3%, respectively.”
The brief also mentions recent “high-technology investments, particularly those associated with aerospace and space-launch operations in the Brownsville area,” as key factors that may play a greater role in the region’s economic structure.
“These developments introduce a segment of high-skilled, capital-intensive employment that contrasts with the region’s traditional reliance on low-wage service sectors,” the brief read.
“Although still limited in scale, such investments may contribute to future wage growth and occupational upgrading, especially if they generate spillovers into local supply chains and complementary industries.”
The full Border Business Brief can be read at UTRGV’s Center for Border Economic Studies website.