Drew Dixon
After a brief increase, Florida unemployment claims fell for the week ending March 15.
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released a new unemployment claims report showing the Sunshine State saw a drop for the week to 5,484 claims. That’s down by 438 claims from the week ending March 8, when there were 5,922 initial filings.
The beginning of March was the first time jobless claims went up in about a month. Most weeks this year have seen declines in new unemployment filings in the state.
The drop in Florida’s initial unemployment claims is in line with the national trend for the past week. There were 206,503 new filings across America. That’s a decrease of 7,502 claims the previous week, or a 3.5% decline.
DOL analysts had projected a larger weekly decrease, with prognosticators noting they had expected a drop of 9,285 filings. The most recent national number did increase year-to-year. There were 191,772 filings during the equivalent week last year.
The drop in new claims for Florida comes amid a FloridaCommerce report released Monday that showed the general unemployment rate increased slightly. January figures showed the state’s unemployment figure jumped for the first time in months, rising from 3.4% in December to 3.5% in January.
That’s the first increase in about a half year. The rate held steady at 3.4% for the back half of 2024. Prior to that, the rate remained at 3.3% for most of early last year.
There were 390,000 people out of work in January in Florida out of a total labor force of 11,188,000 people in the state. That total labor force figure is the highest number Florida has ever seen.
While Florida’s jobless rate increased in January, it still remains lower than the national rate, which is 4%. The Sunshine State has maintained a lower jobless rate than the national number for 51 straight months.
