The status of the Austin area as a magnet for job seekers nationally shows no signs of weakening, despite the region's eight-year stretch as the fastest-growing large metro area in the country.

The local unemployment rate slipped to 2.7% last month, a level it hit four times in 2018 but the lowest for the month of March in two decades, according to numbers not seasonally adjusted that were released Friday by the Texas Workforce Commission. The jobless rate registered 3% this February and in March 2018.

The latest figures come on the heels of new population data from the U.S. Census Bureau this week showing that the Austin-Round Rock area gained slightly more than 53,000 people in 2018 — primarily from international and domestic migration — marking its eighth consecutive year as the fastest-growing U.S. metropolitan region with at least 1 million residents.

“As people are moving to Austin, they are immediately finding jobs — there is almost no gap," said Michael Sury, a University of Texas finance lecturer and an economist.

The natural rate of unemployment generally is pegged at 4.5% to 5%. The Austin metro area — which encompasses Travis, Williamson, Hays, Bastrop and Caldwell counties — has spent the past several years fluctuating around 3%, an extremely low rate Sury called doubly notable given the huge influx of people.

"The demographic increase of that size coupled with continued low unemployment — that's unusual and impressive," he said. "There is no slack in our economy at the present."

The trend might not let up anytime soon. Despite the population growth, local businesses are still reporting shortages of qualified workers and intense competition for those who are qualified — making it likely that national job seekers will continue associating the metro area with a giant "help wanted" sign.

"What I am hearing from a variety of businesses is that they need bodies," said Rebecca Melançon, executive director of the Austin Independent Business Alliance, which represents about 1,100 local companies, most of which are small. “They're totally desperate to fill the jobs they are creating."

Statewide, the March unemployment rate came in at a seasonally adjusted 3.8%, unchanged from February but down from 4% in March 2018, according to the Workforce Commission. The state agency doesn’t immediately adjust its metro level data for seasonal factors, but the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas released seasonally adjusted numbers for the Austin metro area Friday that also peg the region’s unemployment rate last month at 2.7%, a decline from 2.9% in February and 3% in March 2018.

Melançon said many of the Austin business owners who belong to her organization would like to see the local economy cool a bit from its current red-hot pace.

While demand is strong for goods and services, she said it hasn't been enough in many cases to offset the downsides of the boom — including rising rents and property tax bills, as well as higher payroll costs fueled by increased wages and benefits. She also said many are having to fill job openings with applicants who "are far less qualified (and) far less experienced than five or 10 years ago" because of the stiff competition for workers.

“The increase in revenue (attributable to the boom) is not covering the increase in costs," Melançon said. “When you look at affordability, I have members who have more revenue coming in the door, but they aren’t making the profit they made five years ago.”

Drew Scheberle, a senior vice president at the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, heralded the region's strong economy, saying the chamber has worked to promote "job generation across the skill and wage spectrums to help make our community more prosperous." But he also said more needs to be done to "upskill" local people to take the jobs being created, which is why the chamber partners "with organizations like Austin Community College to train people, so they can start or advance their careers and earn more money.”

Hiring in the metro area over the past 12 months has been led by 6,000 new jobs in professional and business services, the industry category that includes most of the technology sector. Jobs in the category have climbed 3.3% since March 2018, bringing the region's total to 189,000, according to the Workforce Commission.

The employment sector that includes retail and wholesale trade — which tracks closely with population growth — added 4,700 new jobs over that time, a 2.7% increase that puts the total in the category at 181,200. The education and health services category has added 4,100 jobs, or 3.3%, for a total of 127,800.

Overall, the March unemployment rate in the Austin area was the lowest among Texas’ major metro areas, according to the Dallas Fed, with the San Antonio-New Braunfels region in second place at a seasonally adjusted 3.1%. The McAllen region in South Texas came in highest among the state’s major metro areas, at 5.9%.