City demographer: Austin growth slowed; international migration now the largest net migration component

Lila Valencia, demographer for the City of Austin, presented population trends and projections, telling the commission that Austin’s recent growth has slowed compared with the rapid expansion of earlier years and that international migration is currently the principal source of positive net migration.

Valencia said the Austin metro added about 58,000 people year over year in the most recent estimate, but that Austin’s rank among largest U.S. cities slipped from the top 10 to 13th and the metro is now the fourth-fastest-growing large region in the country. She said Travis County experienced negative domestic net migration in 2023 (more people moved out than moved in) and that in 2024 net migration was positive only because of international arrivals.

Valencia described demographic composition and shifts: the city’s non-Hispanic white share is about 47%, Hispanic about 32.5%, Asian almost 9% and Black just under 7%, with a growing multiracial population. She said the Hispanic share’s slower growth is a departure from statewide trends and that Asian population growth has been one of the fastest increases, particularly among households with children.

On international migrants, Valencia said Austin’s foreign‑born population (city limits) is about 179,000 and that recent increases reflect diverse country origins: Asian Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean among Asian-origin groups and Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba and Colombia among Hispanic-origin groups. She noted differences in educational attainment and incomes by origin and said international migrants in recent years have contributed meaningfully to metro population change.

Valencia outlined three projection sources: Texas Demographic Center metro projections (which forecast the region could more than double to about 5.2 million by 2060 under their assumptions), county-level projections and the city’s internal projections that account for suspected 2020 census undercount. Using a “half-migration” scenario she described as the most likely for current trends, the City of Austin would reach about 1.3 million residents by 2060; under a higher-migration scenario the city could exceed 1.7 million.

She demonstrated an interactive population and employment forecast that spatially distributes projected growth across the city and noted the airport-area polygon could grow from roughly 10,000 to more than 41,000 residents and from about 6,000 jobs to nearly 18,000 by 2060 under those projections. Valencia said the team will publish a fuller report and make the tool available later in summer.

Commissioners asked for follow-up data on immigrant origins, demographic subgroups, manufacturing-job trends and industry drivers; Valencia said staff can pull further county-level and sector-level data and is preparing a jobs study to analyze industry changes, wages and worker locations. No formal action resulted from the presentation.