Florida’s unemployment rate in June was 10.6 percent, unchanged from May, the Agency for Workforce Innovation reported Friday. The agency said that 982,000 people in the state were jobless in June out of a labor force of 9.2 million.
While unchanged from May, the June unemployment rate is 0.8 percentage points lower than the June 2010 rate of 11.4 percent.
The U.S. unemployment rate was 9.2 percent in June.
Governor Scott, where are the jobs?
Developing Story…….
Florida’s jobless rate remained at 10.6 percent in June, same as in May, still lower slightly than a year ago, the Agency for Workforce Innovation reported Friday.
June’s figure translates into 982,000 jobless out of the statewide workforce of 9.2 million. The national rate for June was 9.2 percent.
State employment officials said the month’s figures reflect a continued slow increase in jobs, which have made year-to-year gains over the past nine months.
“While Florida’s continued pattern of job growth is good news, we still have much work to do to restore our state’s economy to pre-recession levels, and that effort remains our highest priority,” said AWI Director Cynthia R. Lorenzo.
While Florida’s statewide rate remained stable, county-by-county rates inched up in June from May, a discrepancy brought about because the statewide numbers are adjusted to take into account seasonal fluctuations while the local figures do not.
Rebecca Rust, AWI chief economist, said the higher local rates are almost entirely attributed to seasonal job losses in agriculture and non-instructional education personnel, who unlike teachers and administrators are laid off in the summer months. The statewide average however, takes those annual dips into account and adjusts for them..
“We move the seasonality out so we can look at the business cycle…..so we can see if the economy is doing better or worse,” Rust said.
June’s statewide figures are the lowest since August 2009 and continue a sixth-month trend of lower or stable unemployment rates. The number of non-agricultural jobs in Florida increased to 7.2 million, up 53,000 from a year ago.
Leisure and hospitality jobs increased most, accounting for 46,700 more jobs than June 2010, a 5.1 percent increase. Of particular note, the number of manufacturing jobs increased by 800 jobs, the first year-to-year increase since 2006.
Sectors losing jobs included government, which lost 16,000 jobs, a drop almost entirely attributed to a loss of federal census employment.
Construction employment continued to sag, losing another 9,400 jobs when compared to June 2010. .
Locally, Monroe County had the lowest unemployment rate in June at 6.6 percent. It was followed by Walton County at 6.9 percent and Liberty County at 7 percent.
Hendry County had the highest unemployment rate in the state at 16.2 percent, up 0.9 percentage points from June 2010. Hendry was followed by Flagler County (14.6 percent) and Miami-Dade (13.9 percent).
Nationally, the 9.2 percent rate in June is down 0.3 percentage points from June 2010 but is the third increase in as many months, a lull Rust attributed to a host of factors both domestically and abroad.
“There has been somewhat of a soft patch in the past few months which is really due to higher oil prices, which impacts consumer confidence, consumer sales and consumption, (and) transportation,” Rust said. “We’ve had some weather issues over the past several months and some supply shortages due to Japan’s national disaster.”
By Michael Peltier
