THE FUTURE IS NOW

Google-owned Waymo to test self-driving robotaxis in San Antonio

Waymo is testing its driverless taxis in San Antonio.

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Could self-driving robotaxis soon become a reality in San Antonio? Via a May 27 social media post, Waymo announced that Alamo City would be one of three new stops on a multi-year “road trip.” Although the cross-country treks are mainly designed to refine the company’s technology, they could be a sign of things to come.

Waymo’s testing isn’t a guarantee that its autonomous ride-hailing service will be in San Antonio anytime soon. The Alphabet-owned company, which also owns Google, selects cities where conditions and driving culture differ from those in its usual operating areas. Waymo currently has fleets in Austin, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, and Miami.

Before letting its technology loose on a city, human drivers manually steer the vehicles. Once Waymo maps each locale, the cars can begin driving independently. Unique situations are flagged by specialists, and engineers evaluate performance in virtual replicas of each city. During the test run, the cars are not available to local commercial passengers.

Naturally, a fully mapped city helps clear the way for Waymo service. Commuters in Washington D.C. and Atlanta, both road trip cities, will share the streets with driverless cars in the upcoming months.

In September 2024, Waymo announced a partnership with ride-hailing service Uber, which resulted in the March introduction of robotaxis in Austin. Several other companies, including Lyft and Tesla, are entering the driverless car race — making San Antonio robotaxi service a matter of when not if.

Still, the company, which began as a secret project, is keeping characteristically mum on its future plans. The social media posts announcing the test runs in San Antonio, Houston, and Orlando did not include dates. Reddit users in Houston have already spotted charging locations, although no similar pictures have been posted on the San Antonio subreddit.

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Jobs report

Texas ranks as No. 7 best state to find a job, says new report

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

It's easier to get hired in Texas than in nearly any other state.

If you’re hunting for a job in Texas amid a tough employment market, you stand a better chance of landing it here than you might in other states.

A new ranking by personal finance website WalletHub of the best states for jobs puts Texas at No. 7. The Lone Star State lands at No. 2 in the economic environment category and No. 18 in the job market category.

Massachusetts tops the list, and West Virginia appears at the bottom.

To determine the most attractive states for employment, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 34 key indicators of economic health and job market strength. Ranking factors included employment growth, median annual income, and average commute time.

“Living in one of the best states for jobs can provide stable conditions for the long term, helping you ride out the fluctuations that the economy will experience in the future,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo says.

In September, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Texas led the U.S. in job creation with the addition of 195,600 jobs over the past 12 months.

While Abbott proclaimed Texas is “America’s jobs leader,” the state’s level of job creation has recently slowed. In June, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas noted that the state’s year-to-date job growth rate had dipped to 1.8 percent, and that even slower job growth was expected in the second half of this year.

The August unemployment rate in Texas stood at 4.1 percent, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Throughout 2025, the monthly rate in Texas has been either four percent or 4.1 percent.

By comparison, the U.S. unemployment rate in August was 4.3 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2025, the monthly rate for the U.S. has ranged from 4 percent to 4.3 percent.

Here’s a rundown of the August unemployment rates in Texas’ four biggest metro areas:

Austin — 3.9 percent
Dallas-Fort Worth — 4.4 percent
San Antonio — 4.4 percent
Houston — 5 percent

Unemployment rates have remained steady this year despite layoffs and hiring freezes driven by economic uncertainty. However, the number of U.S. workers who’ve been without a job for at least 27 weeks has risen by 385,000 this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in August. That month, long-term unemployed workers accounted for about one-fourth of all unemployed workers.

An August survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed a record-low 44.9 percent of Americans were confident about finding a job if they lost their current one.

This story originally was published on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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