Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis
TALLAHASSEE, FL—Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is crowing about the state's economy in response to recent job numbers that have Florida continuing to outpace the nation in terms of job growth.
The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity released earlier this week January 2019 and yearly employment totals for 2018. The State of Florida posted a private sector job growth rate of 2.7% in 2018, well above the 2.1% US private sector job growth rate for last year.
Florida created 207,300 new private sector jobs last year. The number of overall jobs in Florida was 8,900,300 in January 2019, up 209,500 jobs compared to a year ago. The industry gaining the most jobs was professional and business services, which created 54,000 jobs, an increase of 4% of the industry's workforce.
“Florida's economy is strong, but we cannot rest on our laurels,” said Gov. DeSantis. “We have to build on our success by keeping taxes low and regulations reasonable, becoming the number one state for career and technical education and making smart investments in our infrastructure and environment. Only then can we ensure every Floridian has the opportunity to achieve economic prosperity.”
Florida's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 3.4% in January 2019, a 0.1 percentage point increase from the December 2018 rate, and down 0.5 percentage point from a year ago. There were 352,000 jobless Floridians out of a labor force of 10,320,000. The U.S. unemployment rate was 4.0% in January.
Other top growth industry growth sectors in 2018 were: education and health services with 35,900 new jobs; trade, transportation and utilities with 29,400 new jobs; construction with 26,600 new jobs; leisure and hospitality with 25,600 new jobs; and financial activities with 16,700 new jobs.
In January 2019, 22 out of 24 metro areas in Florida had year-over-year job gains. The areas with the largest gains were Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford (+49,900 jobs, +3.9%), Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall (+30,000 jobs, +2.5%), and Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater (+19,300 jobs, +1.4%).
Panama City was the only metro area to experience an over-the-year job loss in January 2019 (-800 jobs, -1.0%). Sebring was unchanged over-the-year.
In January 2019, Monroe County had the state's lowest unemployment rate (2.8%); followed by St. Johns County and Okaloosa County (3.4% each) and Orange County and Seminole County (3.5% each).
Gulf County had the highest unemployment rate (7.4%) in Florida in January 2019, followed by Bay County (6.0%), Citrus County (5.9%), and Hendry County (5.8%). In January 2019, Panhandle County unemployment rates reflect the continued impacts from Hurricane Michael, according to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.
Florida job postings were 273,740 openings in January 2019. The Florida Consumer Sentiment Index was 97.8 in January 2019.
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John Jordan
John Jordan is a veteran journalist with 36 years of print and digital media experience.
