Floridas unemployment rate dropped to 7.2 percent in April -- lowest it has been since September 2008, Gov. Rick Scott announced Friday. In fact, Florida outperformed the national unemployment rate for last month, which stands at 7.5 percent.
In March, the state jobless rate was 7.5 percent.
April is the first month in five years in which no county had above 10 percent unemployment in Florida.
In making the announcement, Scott picked up his theme of lets get to work, which was his main campaign slogan in 2010.
Floridas families are getting back to work and our states economy is growing, Scott said. With 16,700 new private-sector jobs added last month and an unemployment rate that continues to decline, Florida is once again below the national average with 7.2 percent.
Scott pointed to the recently concluded legislative session in which both chambers supported eliminating the manufacturing sales tax, which the governor made one of his top priorities.
Growing jobs is our top priority and this legislative session we eliminated barriers on manufacturers to ensure Florida is a top destination for manufacturing jobs, Scott said, adding that Hertzs -- a Fortune 500 company --recent decision to move their corporate headquarters from New Jersey to Fort Myers was further proof that Florida was on the road to recovery. Just last week we also welcomed Hertz to Florida and are excited they have chosen to relocate their corporate headquarters to the Sunshine State. It is clear that our policies to create jobs for Florida families and attract new and expanding businesses to Florida is working.
Scotts team noted that unemployment in Florida has dropped almost 4 percent since their boss took office in early 2011. During that same period, the national unemployment rate has dropped 1.8 percent.
Over the past year, there have been more than 119,000 jobs added to Floridas economy -- 40,500 coming from the transportation and utilities industries and 34,400 coming from the tourism and hospitality areas. During the same period, there have been 4,000 manufacturing jobs and 8,700 government jobs lost in Florida.
At 3.7 percent, Monroe County had the lowest unemployment rate in April. Hendry County had the highest unemployment rate at 9.9 percent.
Tallahassee political writer Jeff Henderson wrote this story exclusively for Sunshine State News.
