Florida’s new jobless claims mostly steady since last week

The number of first-time unemployment claims in Florida dropped. Image via AP.

Initial weekly unemployment benefit claims held steady for the most part in Florida, with an increase of just 12 filings for the week ending Aug. 10, according to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL).

There were 5,350 first-time jobless filings in Florida before seasonal adjustments last week. That’s barely up from the previous week’s figure of 5,338, an increase of just 0.2%.

Those numbers demonstrate the general trend this Summer, which has seen solid figures. Filings have fallen for seven out of the past nine weeks.

The national picture showed a slight decrease in weekly initial unemployment claims for the week ending Aug. 10. There were 199,530 first-time jobless claims last week, before seasonal adjustments. That’s a decrease of 4,500 from the previous week or a 2.2% drop.

The states with biggest increases in first-time weekly jobless claims heading into August thus far are New Jersey, California, Wisconsin, New York and Illinois.

States with the largest decreases in initial weekly unemployment claims so far in August include Michigan, Texas, Missouri, Virginia and Georgia.

The relatively stable unemployment picture in first-time unemployment filings in Florida reflects the general jobless picture for the state this year. There have been few upticks in the monthly unemployment rates in Florida in 2024, and when the jobless rate has gone up it’s been only in modest increments.

June’s Florida unemployment rate was 3.3%. That figure has remained the same since April and prior to that the jobless rate had increased by only 0.1 percentage points each month, according to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.

Florida has also gone against the national trend and the unemployment rate across America for basically the past four years. Florida has maintained a monthly jobless rate that’s lower than the national figure for 44 straight months. Gov. Ron DeSantis has taken credit for keeping that number low, saying his economic policies have created a reliable jobs market in the state.