According to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, the metro Orlando area had the fastest private sector job growth entering 2022. While Miami and Tampa have a larger total labor force, the Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford area had a 9.1% over-the-year change. Florida’s January employment figures were released last week.
In January 2022, 23 out of all 24 metro areas in Florida had over-the-year job gains. The areas with the largest gains were Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford (+110,500 jobs), Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall (+78,700 jobs), and Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater (+69,400 jobs).
The Orlando unemployment rate was listed at 3.8% according to preliminary January 2022 data in the FDEO report. Florida’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 3.5 percent in January 2022, unchanged from the revised December 2021 rate, and down 2.5 percentage points from a year ago. There were 364,000 jobless Floridians out of a labor force of 10,448,000. The U.S. unemployment rate was 4.0 percent in January.
Overall, the number of jobs in Florida reached a new record level of 9,163,800 in January 2022, up 504,000 jobs compared to a year ago. All ten major industries experienced positive over-the-year job growth in January. The industries gaining jobs over the year included leisure and hospitality (+179,100 jobs); professional and business services (+100,700 jobs); trade, transportation, and utilities (+94,500 jobs); financial activities (+34,500 jobs); education and health services (+27,900 jobs); other services (+16,900 jobs); construction (+15,000 jobs); manufacturing (+14,900 jobs); information (+11,000 jobs); and total government (+7,300 jobs).
More Florida economic data is set to be released later this month.
