Janelle Irwin Taylor
Unemployment in Florida held steady at just 2.8% in February, according to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity’s Friday report. The labor force also increased with 195,000 Floridians entering the workforce over the year.
Florida businesses created 157,700 private-sector jobs over the year and the state’s annual private-sector job growth rate of 2.0% continued to outpace the national job growth rate of 1.7%.
However, and it’s a really big “however,” those numbers represent a pre-coronavirus economy and next month’s report will likely show some major decline.
More people filed unemployment claims in Florida last week than ever have before in the state. Department Executive Director Ken Lawson said bluntly on Friday the unemployment numbers are going up.
“It’s impacting everybody. Everything we are doing to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 is having an impact on businesses,” Lawson said. “It’s causing an unprecedented level of individuals, Floridians, our friends and neighbors, applying for unemployment benefits.”
More than 74,000 individuals applied, shattering Florida’s previous record of 40,403 set in 2009 as the state reeled from the Great Recession. The jobless reports also amounted to a massive jump from the previous week when 6,256 claims were filed.
Unemployment claims are so rampant, the state’s unemployment website crashed Thursday and phone lines clogged amid a backlog of out-of-work residents.
Take into consideration also that the second largest private sector job growth in February occurred in leisure and hospitality, the sector most likely to be negatively impacted by businesses closures and rollbacks.
Businesses across the state, particularly bars, restaurants and hotels, are either closing entirely or operating on significantly scaled back operations. The Leisure and hospitality industry added 28,400 new jobs in February, many of which might have been erased after Florida Gov. Ron DeSatis ordered all bars and nightclubs closed for at least 30 days in early March.
Still, some of the new jobs added could stay in tact. Nearly 36,000 private education and health care service jobs were added in February. Private education jobs might be affected by coronavirus-related closures or reductions, but health services jobs will be in demand.
Private sector growth also occurred in the trade, transportation and utilities sector with 27,000 new positions, of which some jobs might remain at least somewhat safe. Professional and business services added more than 26,000 jobs to an industry most likely to weather the economic impacts of COVID-19. Though even professional jobs are at risk as companies face limited revenue amid a declining economy.
The newly released estimate showed 291,000 Floridians out of work in February from a labor force of 10.46 million, numbers essentially unchanged from January.
However, on Thursday, the U.S. Labor Department reported 3.28 million jobless claims had been filed across the country during the week ending Sunday, with 74,313 by Floridians.
The state received 5,325 unemployment applications the first week in March and 6,463 the second week. But as of Friday morning, 133,000 applications had been filed this week, after restaurants, bars, theme parks, hotels, Major League Baseball spring training games and numerous other types of businesses and venues scaled back operations or were closed.
As the numbers of claims soar, labor leaders and Democrats have raised concerns that the state’s online unemployment-compensation system often shuts down while people are applying and that call centers don’t have enough people to assist.
“The week of March 7, I had 28,000 calls. The week of the 14th, I had 228,000,” Lawson said.
The leisure and hospitality field, which is taking a heavy brunt of the shutdowns and layoffs, had added 2,100 new jobs in February according to the new numbers.
However, a study released Friday indicated that one in three tourism businesses in the state had laid off employees since March 1.
The study by Destinations Florida, which represents travel-marketing organizations, said 97 percent of tourism businesses had declines in revenue, with hotel occupancy at 23 percent this month compared to 82 percent at the same point in 2019.
Also, nearly 100 percent of hotels, vacation-rental agencies and bed and breakfasts have lost bookings over the next 60 days.
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Material from the News Service of Florida was used in this post.
