New jobless claims drop for third week in a row in Florida

Initial weekly jobless claims have now dropped for three straight weeks in Florida, according to new U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) figures.

June proved to be a more upbeat month in the Sunshine State for first-time unemployment benefit claims compared to other months this year, which have been turbulent. There were 6,749 initial unemployment claims for the week ending June 29 in Florida before seasonal adjustments, down by 558 from the previous week’s figures.

The three-week run of declining first-time jobless claims in Florida is a sign of some stability. The number of new unemployment claims in the state has fluctuated wildly for the most part from week to week. Some weeks have seen that number increase or decrease by more than 1,000 claims from the prior week.

The most recent weekly drop seen in Florida is counter to movement in the metric nationally. First-time jobless filings increased across the nation to 238,149 for the week ending June 29, up by 13,049 from the week ending June 22. That’s a 5.8% increase in the national weekly filings before seasonal adjustments.

While there have been some shifts in the weekly initial jobless claims in Florida for much of this year, the state has remained relatively stable in the overall unemployment rate.

There have been some slight upticks in the overall Florida unemployment rate. But the latest monthly jobless figures released late last month showed the state’s unemployment rate held steady in May at 3.3%. Even April’s figure, which climbed to 3.3% ,was up by only 0.1 percentage point from the March figure.

In addition, May’s overall unemployment rate in Florida continued a multiyear streak of the Sunshine State’s jobless figure outperforming that number nationwide. May was the 43rd straight month where Florida had a lower unemployment rate than the national rate. The figure for the entire U.S. was 0.7 percentage point higher than the state figure last month.