Florida’s unemployment rate went down to 4.9 percent in September
DORAL, FL – Florida’s unemployment rate went down to 4.9 in September according to the State Department of Economic Opportunity.
This rate was on 5.0 percent in August and 2.3 percentage points higher from September 2020. Now, 517,000 Floridians are out of work from a labor force of 10.59 million, which represents an improvement considering the number of unemployed people was down 13,000 while the size of the labor force had grown by 50,000.
But despite the positive scenario, the number of people leaving their jobs jumped from 193,000 in September 2020 to 264,000 as per the most recent report.
“Eventually, (workers) are going to have to decide, do they want to go back to work or are they just going to leave the workforce entirely?” Department of Economic Opportunity Secretary Dane Eagle said in a conference call to CBS Miami.
“So, the message to employers is yes, look, if they’re having trouble hiring, they have to get creative. They have to make decisions about what do they want to do to market themselves to be attractive to those in the job market. And that’s free market economics. And that’s what we support here in Florida.”
However, Florida’s unemployment rate is not too far from the national rate which it was 4.8 percent in September, down from 5.2 percent in August, and the state is among the 27 that showed lower rates in September compared with August.
As fas as industries, Governor Ron DeSantis said in a video release on Friday, the state’s non-agricultural employment is on good track since the number of jobs grew by 84,500 month-to-month.
“That’s a big chunk of the national numbers that were reported in September,” DeSantis said in the video. “We’re 6½ percent of the population, and then the jobs added (a) much, much greater percentage. So, we want to continue to work hard to provide people opportunity, create an environment that people want to work and live and thrive for themselves and their families.”
Since the pandemic left nearly 1.27 million Floridians out of work between February and April 2020, the state has regained just over 1 million jobs.
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