On Friday, the state Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) announced that unemployment continued to drop in Florida last month even as the state reeled from the impact of Hurricane Irma and lost more than 125.000 jobs in September.
In September, the unemployment rate dropped to 3.8 percent. Back in August, that rate stood at 4 percent. The national unemployment rate was 4.2 percent last month.
Gov. Rick Scott weighed in on the drop in the unemployment rate on Friday and pointed to the hurricane’s impact on the Sunshine State as to why there were now 127,400 jobs fewer nonagricultural jobs.
“I am proud that Florida’s unemployment rate has reached a more than 10-year low of 3.8 percent,” Scott said. “However, Hurricane Irma was the largest storm we have seen, which affected our entire state and led to the largest evacuation and power restoration effort. Obviously, our jobs numbers were affected because of this. Florida is a resilient state and we are working around the clock to rebuild and recover from this unprecedented storm. Florida’s economy remains strong and more than 1.3 million private-sector jobs have been created across our state since December 2010. We will continue to fight for jobs every day.”
Cissy Proctor, the executive director of the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, also offered her take on the news.
“It is great news that Florida’s unemployment rate is at 3.8 percent, the lowest in more than a decade,” Proctor said. “Florida also continued to have a labor force growing three times faster than the nation’s. Although the state as a whole was impacted by this storm, three large metro areas still had strong over-the-year job gains, showing the strength of our economy. As we restore businesses damaged from this natural disaster, it is more important than ever that we focus on getting Floridians back to work so families throughout the state can continue to flourish.”
As Proctor noted, Florida is outpacing the nation when it comes to expanding the labor force. In the past year, the national growth rate stood at .8 percent while, in Florida, it has been 2.4 percent with almost 240,000 people entering the job force.
The hurricane clearly impacted the leisure and hospitality industry which has lost more than 21,000 jobs in Florida over the past year, even as record numbers of tourists visited the state in the first half of 2017. Only a month ago, DEO noted that industry was creating new jobs.
A number of other industries in Florida--goods producing; mining logging and construction; trade, transportation and utilities; construction; professional and business services; administrative and waste services--also saw major declines in September.
Despite the hurricane’s impact, the past year has seen job growth in Florida. The education and health services sector has led the way in Florida with 15,000 new jobs in the past year followed by trade, transportation and utilities with 13,900 new jobs and construction with 12,700 additional jobs.
Last month, Okaloosa and St. Johns counties had the lowest unemployment rate in the state at 2.7 percent each followed by Franklin, Wakulla and Walton counties where that rate stood at 2.9 percent. Hendry County easily had the highest unemployment rate at 8.6 percent followed by Hardee County at 6.0 percent and Glades County at 5.3 percent.
