This portion was written by the staff at the News Service of Florida in Tallahassee.
Tallahassee, FL - Florida's unemployment rate ticked down to 3.2 percent in September, the state reported Friday.
The rate, down from 3.3 percent in August, represented an estimated 336,000 Floridians out of work from a workforce of 10.4 million, according to numbers released by the state Department of Economic Opportunity. The seasonally adjusted figure, compared to a national rate of 3.5 percent for September, included a reduction in the number of Floridians out of work by 6,000 from the August numbers and 7,000 from a year earlier.
The gains were bolstered by growth in the workforce by 34,000 from August to September and by 154,000 from September 2018. Education and health services accounted for 59,600 new jobs over the past year, followed by 49,200 jobs in professional and business services and 30,300 jobs in fields involving leisure and hospitality.
Construction has grown by 16,200 jobs over the past year, with manufacturing positions up 7,700. Regionally, the Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford metropolitan statistical area had the largest growth over the past year at 48,800 jobs.
Over the past year, only the Panama City and Sebring statistical areas showed job losses. The Panama City area, which was hit by Category 5 Hurricane Michael in October 2018, was down 2,000 jobs from September 2018. The Sebring area was off 200 jobs in the same period.
This portion was written by News Daytona Beach’s Patrick Murphy
Just like the state's trend, the jobless rate in Volusia and Flagler continues to drop in monthly and annual comparisons.
This August, both Volusia and Flagler saw a combined unemployment rate of about 3.7%. Individually, Volusia had 3.7% and Flagler had 4.1%.
Then, the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity reported that the rate dropped between August and September of this year by half of a percent. The jobless rate is also down about 0.3% when compared to September of last year. That rate was 3.5%
Mining, logging and construction jobs saw the biggest percentage increase when it came to the workforce with 9.3% more people employed. That's a jump of about 1,300 workers.
The biggest drop, however, came in the professional and business service industry. That group saw a drop of about 2.6%, or about 600 people unemployed.
According to CareerSource Flagler Volusia, the Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach Metropolitan Statistical Area had the fastest annual job growth rate compared to all the metro areas in the state in mining, logging, and construction (up 9.3%) in September 2019.
