Florida’s weekly first-time jobless claims fall again in first week of May

Image via AP.

May started off on a good note for Florida’s job market, with another decrease in first-time unemployment insurance claims.

That weekly figure dropped for the seven-day stretch ending May 4, according to new U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) data. There were 5,680 first-time jobless claims in Florida last week, using seasonally non-adjusted statistics. That’s down from the previous week’s figure of 5,989, a drop of 309 first-time filings in the Sunshine State.

The Florida numbers buck the national trends, according to the DOL. Using seasonally unadjusted data, there were 209,324 initial unemployment claims across America for the week ending May 4. That’s an increase over the previous week’s initial unemployment claims by 19,390 filings. That’s a 10.2% increase on the national level for the week.

Florida’s first-time jobless claims have been decreasing for much of the year thus far. The last full week of April saw a decrease from the previous week ending April 20 when there were 6,351 initial unemployment claims.

While the figures released Thursday by the DOL were just for first-time jobless claims, it’s not in line with the most recent total unemployment claims in Florida. The total jobless figure for Florida in March was 3.2%, which represented a slight increase of 0.1 percentage points over the February jobless number.

April’s total unemployment rate numbers are scheduled to be released next week by the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.