On Friday, Governor Ron DeSantis announced Florida’s unemployment rate dropped to a remarkable, record low of 3.0 percent in December 2019. Additionally, the labor force continued to increase with 220,000 Floridians entering the workforce over the year.
Closer to home, the Tampa area’s unemployment rate was 2.6 percent in December, down 0.6 percentage point from one year ago.
“My administration continues to pursue bold priorities for Florida, and our efforts to diversify the economy are yielding results,” said Governor DeSantis. “I remain laser focused on ensuring Florida is offering a world-class pool of talent to businesses and investing in our students and educators. We continue to prioritize the protection of our natural resources and water quality while also continuously searching for ways to support new and innovative industries which are helping to produce historically low unemployment in our state.”
Florida businesses created 198,200 private-sector jobs over the year and the state’s annual private-sector job growth rate of 2.5 percent continues to outpace the national job growth rate of 1.5 percent.
The year is beginning with more private-sector jobs coming to Florida as well. Just this month, Governor DeSantis announced Made In Space was relocating its corporate headquarters from California to Florida and Spirit Airlines was expanding into a new headquarters in Dania Beach.
Other positive economic indicators include:
- Private-sector industries gaining the most jobs over-the-year were:
- Education and health services with 54,100 new jobs;
- Leisure and hospitality with 47,900 new jobs;
- Professional and business services with 35,500 new jobs;
- Construction with 25,500 new jobs;
- Trade, transportation and utilities with 17,800 new jobs; and
- Florida job postings showed 284,263 openings in December 2019
- Consumer Sentiment Index is 100.1 in December 2019.