A drop in Houston-area private-sector jobs last month reflects the continuing struggles in the national economy, a Houston economist said after the latest jobs report came out Friday.

“Houston was doing really well this past spring and going into early summer,” said Barton Smith, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Houston. Smith called the Friday job report “mildly disappointing,” but not surprising given the debt troubles facing European nations and continuing sluggishness in the U.S. economic recovery.

Houston-area employers created 12,500 new jobs last month, mostly because of a typical end-of-summer surge in public school jobs, the Texas Workforce Commission reported.

But without those 16,100 new public sector jobs – a bump that occurs each fall as school bus drivers, janitors and cafeteria workers go back to work along with the students – Houston would have reported an overall loss in jobs.

That’s because the private sector cut 3,600 jobs last month, according to the monthly survey of employers who report the number of jobs they’ve added or cut. The tally is not adjusted for cyclical peaks and valleys that affect employment levels, such as academic calendars, planting and harvesting seasons, and holiday shopping surges.

“They’re not super negative numbers,” said Smith, who added that Houston is still doing better than the rest of the United States.

“But this notion that Houston is immune from the rest of the nation’s problems? It’s just not true,” he said.

Energy demand

Marsha Murray, president of Murray Resources, a personnel staffing firm, said she sees signs that the job market is improving.

“It seems to be picking up a little at a time,” she said, with demand coming from the energy and financial sectors. They’re looking for engineering, accounting and administrative employees, she said.

But it’s still a tight market for job seekers, Murray said. Employers are exacting about their requirements and they’re not willing to compromise on years of experience, skills or even on hiring someone who worked in a similar but different industry.

“It’s very discouraging for recent college graduates with little or no experience,” she said.

The local unemployment rate for September was 8.6 percent last month, the same as it was in August, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Local unemployment rates are not seasonally adjusted.

Patrick Jankowski, vice president of research at the Greater Houston Partnership, sees reason for optimism in strong export demand from Latin America and Asia, coupled with continued growth in oil exploration and production.

The surge in horizontal drilling and shale plays is encouraging Houston job growth, he said. The technology to extract hard-to-reach oil from shale requires more employees and capital investment than traditional oil drilling methods, he said.

Meanwhile, demand from emerging markets is spurring local manufacturing, trade and transportation growth, he said, pointing to year-over-year job creation data.

The Houston area added 66,300 jobs from September 2010 to September 2011, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. That represents a 2.6 percent year-over-year increase and is more than twice the 31,900 new jobs Houston created in the year beginning in September 2009. Over the last three months, he said, the Houston area has been adding more than 60,000 jobs a month on a year-over-year basis.

Perhaps worse?

Smith estimates that 65 percent of all the job growth in Houston during the past 12 months can be attributed to energy exploration and production.

The industry is “carrying the day” as it brings in outside dollars and promotes overall growth, he said.

“If it weren’t for upstream energy,” Smith said, “Houston wouldn’t look any better than the rest of the United States, and perhaps worse.”