A.G. Gancarski
As Northeast Florida continues the recovery phase after Hurricane Irma’s storm surge inundated large swathes of the city, the DEO offered good news on the jobs front Friday.
Unemployment in the six-county Northeast Florida region stands at 4.2 percent, down from 5.1 percent last August, and in line with state numbers. And there are 2.5 percent more jobs in the region year over year; compared to the 2 percent population growth, that’s another encouraging indicator.
County by county, unemployment numbers are mostly trending better than the state average.
“St. Johns County had the lowest unemployment rate (3.2 percent) in the CareerSource Northeast Florida region followed by Clay County (3.8 percent), Baker County (3.9 percent), Nassau County (3.9 percent), Duval County (4.4 percent), and Putnam County (5.5 percent),” asserts the Department of Economic Opportunity.
Job growth, year over year, has been especially strong in education and health services (up 4,500 jobs), and n trade, transportation, and utilities (up 5,000 jobs) and professional and business services (+4,400 jobs).
The only sector with year over year declines: leisure and hospitality, down 900 jobs year over year.
One comment
Peter Harding
September 15, 2017 at 12:53 pm
I really have to doubt the accuracy of those numbers concerning unemployment. I know several experienced mature workers who still cannot find employment for for over $10 an hour. Most including myself have been unemployed for over two years. I would be more interested in the long-term unemployed figure to get a true picture of unemployment in florida. Most of the jobs brought into the states where companies have been given incentives to relocate bring the majority of their workers with them. Those statistics should be reported also to bring into the sunshine just how many jobs really have been created rather than just relocated! That would be eye opening.
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