Gov. Greg Abbott held another COVID-19 press conference Tuesday afternoon, updating the 1.2 million unemployed Texans with some good news: jobs are available for those who seek them.
The jobs are located across Texas, including at places such as Amazon and HEB. Abbott said all that a person needs to do is visit workintexas.com, upload a resume, and possibly answer a few questions. According to the website, 740 jobs were posted Tuesday.
In the North Texas region, some of the jobs available are in industries such as aerospace, finance, and healthcare industry. Companies include major employment powerhouses Fidelity Investments and Lockheed Martin.
Abbott also indicated that there are several organizations in each region of the state dedicated to helping people find jobs and mentioned a few websites for job seekers to visit, including DFWjobs.com, wfsdallas.com, workforcesolutions.net, and ntxworksolutions.org.
“There are so many people in Texas who want to get back to work,” Abbott said. “Some may have jobs waiting on them. Some may not have employers who will be there. We have a half-a-million jobs available for you. Take a look at these websites and explore the jobs that are available to you so you can get back to work quickly while we’re opening up Texas for you to get back to work.”
At the press conference, Abbott fielded difficult questions from reporters whom Trump would deem hostile. He pointed out that the donors on his Strike Force team were legitimate powerhouses in their respective industries and understood what it takes to open up Texas again.
One reporter brought up the lack of testing and wondered how the governor could be so sure that Texas was ready to go back to work. Abbott countered with his deployment of the National Guard, which has led to 3,500 additional tests available per day and pointed out that this number doesn’t include the testing that the private industry is implementing.
Abbott further stated that his medical team is working on a testing and tracing strategy to monitor communities. They will be implementing 25,000 to 30,000 tests per day.
These numbers also don’t include the testing capacity that he said Vice President Mike Pence and his team had recently discussed with him or the new types of swabs being used and other new testing methods.
“Texas has the lowest death rate connected to COVID-19 and a low and steady rate of hospitalization,” Abbott said. “Texans are responding well to the challenge.”
Abbott said he could understand if they were seeing sudden inexplicable spikes in COVID-19 infections and deaths. “We’re just not seeing it,” he said. “Positive tests are trending down, deaths [are trending down].”
In Texas, nearly 19,000 people out of 29 million Texans have tested positive for COVID-19. About 500 people have died.
Abbott was also asked about the historic drop in oil prices and what he was doing about it. In late March, more than 1 million oilfield workers were projected to lose their jobs, according to research firm Rystad Energy’s analysis.
Abbott claimed that he was speaking with President Trump about their options, which include filling up the reserves, and blamed Saudi Arabia, one of America’s “closest” allies, and Russia for flooding the oil market to drive down prices which, in turn, hurts Americans.
Of course, the press conference wouldn’t be complete without someone asking about one of Trump’s tweets. Monday night, Trump tweeted that he was suspending immigration into the country to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Abbot was asked if he agreed, which is one of those questions that didn’t need to be asked if you’ve been following the news.
Obviously, Abbott agreed with Trump and pointed out that Canada closed its border, too. “[Trump’s} goal is to keep COVID-19 from coming in and getting control of the disease,” he said.
Abbott will be holding another press conference April 27 to issue another round of executive orders to kickstart the Texas economy. Someone asked how his orders will affect Dallas since Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins extended his shelter-in-place orders until May 15.
“Statewide application overrules local jurisdiction,” Abbott said.
