Employment is the common ground between education and commerce, Indeed Senior Vice President Paul D'Arcy said Nov. 17 at the annual Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce State of Education luncheon.

"For us, this is very personal and very important," D'Arcy said. "For most people, careers are probably the most important thing after family and health."

D'Arcy cited Austin job market statistics, including a 3.2 percent unemployment rate in August, a nearly 60 percent increase in Austin job postings on Indeed.com, and growth in most industries, except for manufacturing, for the past 25 years in Austin.

As for which Austin jobs people are searching for the most on Indeed.com, D'Arcy said it is highly-skilled occupations such as engineer, government, nonprofit, product manager, or any job for tech company Apple.

"What we see here is very consistent with a bigger global trend," D'Arcy said. "There are 7.3 billion people in the world today, and a little less than 10 percent have higher education."

D'Arcy said that the economy depends on both continued growth in skilled labor and a desirable place to live. So, educators have an opportunity to prepare Austin residents for the numerous highly-skilled jobs available, he added.

"Beyond education and beyond jobs, we need to look at our city and plan, to think about preparing for coming growth so it doesn't take what we love about Austin away from us," D'Arcy said.