Tallahassee, FL - Florida’s unemployment rate remained unchanged from February to March, according to numbers released Friday by the state Department of Economic Opportunity.
The 3.5 percent jobless mark represents 360,000 Floridians out of work from a workforce of 10.3 million, an increase of 3,000 listed as unemployed from February to March.
The state unemployment rate remains below the national mark of 3.8 percent.
Florida officials highlighted that the state has seen an increase of 209,700 jobs over the past year, an increase of 2.4 percent.
The job category with the biggest growth during that time was professional and business services, which grew by 50,500 positions. Other categories with the top year-to-year growth were education and health services; leisure and hospitality; trade, transportation, and utilities; and construction.
Over the past year, the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metropolitan statistical area had the largest increase in jobs at 55,500, or 2.1 percent; followed by the Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford area at 47,400 jobs, a 3.7 percent increase; and the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area at 29,600 jobs, a 2.2 percent increase.
The Panama City area, still recovering from Hurricane Michael in October, reported a decrease of 1,000 jobs over the past year, a 1.2 percent drop.
Local Impact | Volusia & Flagler Counties
Between March of last year and this year, the combined unemployment rate (not seasonally adjusted) in both Volusia and Flagler counties dropped 0.3% from 3.9% to 3.6%.
Compared to last month, the unemployment rate is 0.2% lower than February's 3.8%.
In comparison to each other, Volusia had a lower unemployment rate than Flagler with 3.5% compared to Flagler's 3.8%
Total employment in both counties increased 0.9% or 1,800, jumping from 204,900 to 206,700.
When it comes to industry gains and losses over the year, mining, logging and construction jobs took the biggest jump, going up 9.6%. The biggest plunge came from professional and business services jobs, which took a 3.9% hit.
The second highest jump was retail jobs, which increased 2.6%. The second highest decrease came from education and health services jobs, which dropped 1.5%.
