Florida jobless rate holds steady at 3.3% in July

Florida jobless rate holds steady at 3.3% in July

TALLAHASSEE — Unemployment in Florida held steady at 3.3 percent in July, while retirements among baby boomers and some Gen Xers are affecting the state’s labor force.

The Florida Department of Commerce on Friday released a report that showed the same 3.3 percent unemployment rate as in April, May and June. The size of the labor force was down slightly in July, while the number of people out of work ticked up.

Among areas of Florida, the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metropolitan statistical area had a 3.4 percent unemployment rate in July, up from 3.1 percent in June.

The Panama City area was at 3.5 percent. The Naples-Immokalee-Marco Island and the Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford areas were at 3.7 percent, while the Jacksonville, Pensacola-Ferry Pass-Brent and Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater areas were at 3.8 percent.

The highest rate was in the Homosassa Springs area at 5.9 percent, up from 5.2 percent in June. The Villages area was at 5.7 percent followed by the Sebring area at 5.6 percent.

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Jimmy Heckman, the department’s chief of workforce statistics and economic research, attributed the labor-force trends to Florida having “an aging population,” with people moving out of the the 25-year-old to 54-year-old working group and making permanent exits from the workforce.

“Retirements are making up more and more of that share of the population,” Heckman told reporters. “We’re not really seeing any other noticeable changes and any other reasons that people might not participate in the labor force.”

The state’s labor force in July totaled 11.05 million people, down 12,000 from June and a decrease of 39,000 since April.

Meanwhile, the state had 366,000 people qualified as out of work in July, an increase of 5,000 from June.

Since July 2023, the number of Floridians listed as unemployed has increased by 48,000 while the size of the labor force has increased by 35,000. The unemployment rate in July 2023 was 2.9 percent.

While the broad employment categories of education and health services and financial activities saw decreases in the number of positions from June to July, the state added 11,200 workers in leisure and hospitality, according to the report. That included additional jobs in hotels and food services.

Overall, the state had an increase in the number of people employed.

“The number of jobs that employers are saying are on payrolls across the state, that number has continued to steadily increase,” Heckman said. “We had more than 20,000 jobs added this month, which is a really robust job growth number.”

The construction sector, for example, added 6,300 positions from June to July and had grown by 36,700 year over year.

The national unemployment rate in July was 4.3 percent, up from 4.1 percent in June.

The statewide unemployment rate is seasonally adjusted, while the metro rates are not adjusted.

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