ORLANDO, Fla. — Yesterday, Governor Rick Scott announced that Florida businesses have created 1,516,900 jobs since December 2010, including 8,300 private-sector jobs in April and 170,400 in the last year. Florida’s annual job growth rate of 2.3 percent continues to exceed the nation’s rate of 1.8 percent. Florida’s annual job growth rate has outpaced the nation for 72 of the past 73 months. The only month that Florida did not exceed the nation was due to Hurricane Irma. The Governor made the announcement today at El Meson in Orlando, a restaurant with four locations in Florida and 37 in Puerto Rico. The Governor visited the restaurant during his fifth trip to Puerto Rico.
Governor Scott said, “I am proud to announce that Florida’s unemployment rate remains low and businesses have created more than 8,000 jobs just last month. April was yet another month where Florida outpaced the nation’s growth rate and we continue to add to our total of over 1.5 million jobs created since December 2010. Floridians across the state are finding great jobs as our economy continues to grow.”
As of April, Florida’s unemployment rate remains low at 3.9 percent, a drop of 6.9 percentage points since December 2010; this drop is faster than the national decline of 5.4 percentage points. In the past year, 125,000 people entered Florida’s labor force, a growth of 1.2 percent, which is greater than the national labor force growth rate of only 0.8 percent.
Cissy Proctor, Executive Director of the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, said, “Businesses are growing and expanding in the Sunshine State and have created more than 1.5 million jobs since December 2010, showing their confidence in our economy and talented workforce. While our labor force rate continues to grow, we are happy to see more opportunities for hardworking Floridians.”
Other positive economic indicators include:
Private-sector industries gaining the most jobs over-the-year were:
Professional and business services with 39,400 new jobs;
Construction with 34,900 new jobs;
Leisure and hospitality with 34,100 new jobs;
Education and health services with 21,700 new jobs; and
Financial activities with 14,700 new jobs.
Florida job postings showed 244,272 openings in April 2018.
To view the April 2018 employment data visit www.floridajobs.org/labor-market-information/labor-market-information-press-releases/monthly-press-releases.