Florida unemployment figure holds steady at 3.7% for fourth straight month

Jacksonville’s unemployment rate increased to 4.2% in June, higher than the steady Florida state average.

Florida’s unemployment rate has now held steady for four months straight.

FloridaCommerce, the state’s business development bureau, released the jobless figures for July showing the unemployment rate remains unchanged at 3.7%. That number has been the same since April.

But the July figure is up in the year-over-year comparison. July 2024 saw an unemployment rate of 3.4%, 0.3 percentage points lower than the current rate. Indeed, every month this year has had a higher rate than a year ago.

The July figure accounts for about 417,000 Floridians who are out of a job. That’s out of an entire estimated workforce in the state of about 11.19 million people. July also saw an expansion of nonagricultural jobs by about 7,300 workers compared to June. That was a gain of about 134,000 people in the annual comparison.

Florida’s job growth has increased in 50 of the last 52 months. The 3.7% July unemployment rate is lower than the national figure of 4.2%. The state has had a lower figure than the national rate for 57 straight months.

As far as individual local jobless reports, the Miami area has seen the lowest unemployment rate among major metropolitan regions in Florida for several months in a row and did so again in July, with a 2.8% jobless figure. That’s the same rate from a year ago.

The Fort Lauderdale area posted a 3.8% unemployment rate in July, up by 0.2 percentage points from July 2024’s figure of 3.6%.

Orlando saw a 3.9% jobless rate in July, up from the 3.7% number a year ago.

Tampa recorded a 4.1% jobless rate last month, an uptick of 0.2 percentage points from July 2024, when that rate was 3.9%.

West Palm Beach had the same rate as Tampa in July, up 0.3 points from 3.8% a year ago.

Jacksonville has one of the higher jobless rates among big metros. The July figure was 4.2%, up from the figure of 3.9% a year ago.

Pensacola posted a 4.4% unemployment rate last month. That’s up from 3.9% posted last year.

The Fort Myers area posted the highest jobless figure among large metros in July, reporting a 4.5% rate. It’s a significant jump from 4% in July 2024.