Tech sector

Dell goes private in sweeping $24 billion buyout

In a sweeping $24.4 billion buyout, Dell announced Tuesday that the computer company, struggling to compete in the personal computer market against stiff competition from mobile phones and tablet computers, will go private.

CEO and founder Michael Dell issued the following as part of his statement:

I believe this transaction will open an exciting new chapter for Dell, our customers and team members. Dell has made solid progress executing this strategy over the past four years, but we recognize that it will still take more time, investment and patience, and I believe our efforts will be better supported by partnering with Silver Lake in our shared vision."

The buyout was brokered between Dell, Microsoft and rising investment firm Silver Lake and will ostensibly return more control of the company to Dell, who founded the company from his dorm room in 1984. But as reported by the New York Times, analysts are bearish on the idea that the company will be able to turn itself around after years of failed reinvention efforts.

Though Egon Durban, a managing partner at Silver Lake, expressed optimism in a statement.

“Michael Dell is a true visionary and one of the pre-eminent leaders of the global technology industry,” Durban said. “Silver Lake is looking forward to partnering with him, the talented management team at Dell and the investor group to innovate, invest in long-term growth initiatives and accelerate the company’s transformation strategy to become an integrated and diversified global I.T. solutions provider.”

Rumors of the computer company going private having been swirling in the past few weeks, mostly hedged by the fact that the deal could very easily fall apart at the eleventh hour. Dell Inc., according to the Austin Business Journal, is the third-largest employer in the Austin area, with about 12,000 local employees. What the move to the private sector means for these employees is unclear.

But it would appear that Dell (the company’s leader, if not necessarily his Round Rock-based company) is invested in sticking close to the Texas capital: The Michael and Susan Dell Family Foundation committed to a $60 million contribution to the University of Texas at Austin’s new medical school just last week.

How do you think the Dell buyout will affect the market for personal computers, mobile phones and tablets?

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Jobs report

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

Photo by The Jopwell Collection on Unsplash

It's easier to find a job 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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