El Paso keeps losing the workers it needs most. The Texas Demographic Center projects that the county’s growth will continue to slow in the coming decades. Internal Revenue Service county-to-county migration data show residents leaving for San Antonio, Dallas, Houston and the Permian Basin. The Dallas Fed, after visiting the region, identified the brain drain of skilled labor as one of El Paso’s central economic challenges, alongside gaps in digital infrastructure and low educational attainment.
Pay and opportunity remain the obvious drivers of outmigration. But another factor deserves more attention: AI readiness is becoming a labor-market advantage.
Firms using AI report measurable productivity gains, and jobs tied to AI skills increasingly carry wage, job-quality and hiring advantages. That does not prove El Pasoans are leaving specifically because of AI adoption gaps. It suggests that places whose employers move faster on AI will offer more attractive career paths than those whose employers do not.
For El Paso’s many small businesses, that is a competitiveness issue, not just a technology issue…