Drew Dixon
Florida hasn’t seen an increase in new unemployment claims for two straight months now.
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) data shows there was a decrease in first-time jobless filings for the week ending Sept. 6. That’s the eighth straight week of declines. There were 5,624 claims filed in the state last week. That’s a modest decrease of 97 filings, down from the 5,721 from the week ending Aug. 30.
The latest figures also represent yet another week where Florida is bucking the trend on the national level. Across America, there new unemployment claims rose last week.
There were a total of 204,581 filings in the U.S. for the first full week of September. That’s a 4% increase, amounting to 7,869 more claims than the last week of August. DOL analysts had projected a decrease that was about twice that much for a slide of 13,004, which would have amounted to a 6.6% drop.
The latest national figure is a substantial jump in the year-over-year comparison. There were 178,687 initial claims for the same comparable week in 2024. That’s a 14.49% increase in the annual comparison.
The unemployment rate has also held steady in Florida this Summer. The 3.7% jobless figure hasn’t changed since March. FloridaCommerce, the state’s business development bureau, is scheduled to release the August unemployment figure next week.
Florida’s jobless rate has been below the national figure for 57 straight months. The current figure for the country stands at 4.2%.
