Drew Dixon
The final week of September produced a substantial drop in first-time unemployment claims for Florida, ending in the fewest number of filings in months.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) reported that new unemployment benefit claims for the week ending Sept. 28 dropped to 5,367 filings before seasonal adjustments in Florida. That’s a decrease of 1,087 from the week ending Sept. 21, when there were 6,454.
The last week of September saw the lowest number of initial jobless claims for Florida in months. It had been about two months since that figure dipped below 6,000 for a single week.
Florida has seen decreases in weekly initial jobless claims through most of the Summer heading into the Fall. The most recent decrease is the fourth out of the past five weeks.
The Florida figures reflected the national trend for the week ending Sept. 28, which also saw a drop in first-time claims. The DOL figures show there were 180,647 new jobless filings across the country in the most recent week. It was a more modest decrease than Florida’s decrease, though, as the number of claims nationally dropped by 1,066, a 0.6% decline.
The Florida trends are also representative of a fairly upbeat jobs picture in the state for most of this year.
The August general unemployment figure for Florida came in at 3.3%, a figure that hasn’t budged since early Spring. State officials are pinning the upbeat unemployment picture in Florida on job development programs.
“Private sector job growth continues to surpass the national average, with a growth rate of 2.1% over the year since August 2023, compared to the national rate of 1.4% over the same time period. This success is attributed to Florida’s strategic investments in workforce education and development, driving high-demand, high-wage jobs that benefit both job seekers and employers,” a FloridaCommerce news release said.
The job growth isn’t just a recent development, either. State officials say there has been positive job growth in Florida in 50 of the last 52 months.
The Florida unemployment figure has remained below the national unemployment rate — now at around 4.2% — for 46 straight months.
