Flagler County’s unemployment rate fell from 16.6 percent in November to 15.6 percent in December, continuing a more-than-yearlong trend of seesawing within that range without a sustained downward break. Florida’s unemployment in December remained unchanged, at 12 percent. The statewide rate has been stuck in that range for 13 months.
Flagler’s rate in December matched that of Hendry County’s, ranking it the highest in the state again. There were 52 counties (out of 67) with double-digit unemployment rates.
Click On:
- January 2011: U.S. Unemployment Rate Falls to 9.4%, But Underlying Improvement Is Limited
- December 2010: Flagler Unemployment Spikes Back Up to 16.6% and Florida’s Back Up to 12%
- The Complete November Jobs Report for Florida
- US Unemployment in November Rises to 9.8% as Job Creation Again Declines to Just 39,000
- Record 43.6 Million in Poverty; Record 50.7 Million Uninsured; Only Elderly Thrive
- Where and how to file for unemployment
As in several previous months in this slowdown, job creation in Flagler (126 net jobs) was not as steep as the decrease in the number of people drawing unemployment (320) or the reduction in the local labor force (194). If Flagler’s unemployment trends are following national trends, more people are dropping off of the unemployment line from being too discouraged to look for work: those workers are no longer counted among the unemployed. The reduction in the labor force, indicative to some extent of residents leaving the county, follows another trend signaled by recent Census Bureau figures: Flagler County is losing population–not much, but enough to reverse the previous decade’s trends, and to affect the local housing market.
If the local population is decreasing, or not increasing, the county’s vast inventory of empty dwellings (more than 15 percent in Palm Coast, a higher proportion countywide, according to the Census) will work against a solid restart in the local housing and real estate industries.
In Florida, the state actually lost 17,900 jobs in December. Some 1.108 million Floridians are out of work in a labor force of 9.24 million.
Over the past year, construction lost 20,200 jobs, a 5.6 percent decline; financial activities lost 7,700 jobs, or 1.6 percent; information technology lost 5,200 jobs, or 3.8 percent, manufacturing lost 5,000 jobs, or 1.6 percent, and government lost 3,200 jobs, or 0.3 percent.
Industries gaining the most jobs included private education and health services (34,500 jobs), leisure and hospitality (33,900, or 3.8 percent), trade, transportation, and utilities (9,600, or 0.7 percent) and services (9,300 jobs, 3 percent).
Here’s how the region ranked in unemployment rates by metropolitan statistical areas:
Palm Coast MSA 15.7 %
2. Ocala MSA 14.0
3. Sebastian-Vero Beach MSA 13.6
4. Port St. Lucie MSA 13.4
5. Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall MD 13.2
6. Cape Coral-Ft. Myers MSA 12.5
7. Lakeland-Winter Haven MSA 12.5
8. Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach MSA 12.2
9. Punta Gorda MSA 12.0
10. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater MSA 12.0
11. Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville MSA 11.9
12. Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-Pompano Beach MSA 11.8
13. Panama City-Lynn Haven-Panama City Beach MSA 11.6
14. North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota MSA 11.6
Florida 11.6
15. West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Boynton Beach MD 11.5
16. Naples-Marco Island MSA 11.5
17. Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford MSA 11.3
18. Jacksonville MSA 11.0
19. Pensacola-Ferry Pass-Brent MSA 10.7
20. Ft. Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach MD 10.2
United States 9.1
21. Tallahassee MSA 8.7
22. Crestview-Ft. Walton Beach-Destin MSA 8.3
23. Gainesville MSA 8.3
DLF says
i WONDER HOW HOPE AND CHANGE IS WORKING OUT THESE PEOPLE?
Pierre Tristam says
DLF, aren’t you retired?
Rick G says
It took Roosevelt about 7 years to show progress in the unemployment rate in the Great Depression which of course was started by similar policies that we have now when it comes to Wall Street and business regulations. It takes time to undo the work of gangster style capitalism.
Pierre Tristam says
Rick G, in fairness to the warmongers, FDR’s war was really the job-creating clincher. We could do the same now, more constructively: a war on poverty, on the lousiest health care system in the western world, on environmentally wasteful policies, on an educational system too nostalgic for the days when global competition stopped at Sputnik, and so on. All of which would, by redirecting the economy along a more modern and sustainable compass, create a mess of jobs.
DLF says
Pierre: why would you ask if I was retired,are retired people not allow to have a say,ask a question or look out for the children and grand children of this generation. I still ask the question; how is hope and change working out for the 15-20% of Flagler people looking for work.. China seems to be doing very well, I wonder why that is, ooops another question from a retired person.
Pierre Tristam says
No my dear DLF, I’m just asking to see how your Medicare is treating you, whether you Social Security checks are getting to you on time, how good was your last mortgage-interest deduction, not to mention that extra homestead exemption they have for seniors, how your various senior discounts are working out for you, and so on. Glad to see you’re taking full advantage of the early-bird special on judging those less fortunate than you. You’re a credit to your generation.
DLF says
My dear Liberal Pierre: I was not judging anyone just asking the question, how is hope and change working out for the 15-20% who are not working.. By the way how was your unemployment check when you were out of work, do you get the same deductions that I get on your mortage or is the goverment paying your rent?My Medicare is nor so good since the goverment has screwed that up, but you will get a taste of it when you get Obamacare.. Social Security is great but again I paid into it and the goverment has screwed that up, in this case you may never know. I guess I get all the bennies that you wrote about for the NJ and what a great thing they were doing in taking care of your parents, singing a little different tune, now that you are out in the real world. By the way I agree my generation has helped screw things up, but no way where near what your generation is doing with their free spending and social programs. Most of the people less fortunate than me are there thanks to a poor run goverment for the last10 years and it looks like the next two, judging by the above numbers, 15-20 % jobless, and all the other negative numbers I could name. Keep up the good work and we should be broke by the end of 2012. Need to go now Martins is havinb a great early bird special hope they will take my food stamps..
DLF says
Pierre seems to be a loss for words; when he does not like the reply. It seems that if you are a liberal and do not like the facts, you either assign names (name calling) or you do not say anything , must be the new trend of treating everyone with love and respect….as long as they agree with you.
Pierre Tristam says
DLF, your flat-earth sobriety isn’t the center of my universe. I have a whole site to edit (we had more than 5,000 readers yesterday alone, a record for a Sunday) so I have very limited time for skeet-shooting fantasies. The fact that you’re addicted to this site tells me enough anyway: you’re redeemable.
BW says
There are a few notions in my opinion that often get over-looked, and very often by the older generations. First, this idea that the jobs need to be created right here in Flagler County. Not going to happen. Most that live here are from the Northeast and how many ever worked in the town the lived in? Very few. We all traveled to work each day. Granted some jobs will be created within the hospitality industry and the medical fields, but we are not going to see some large industry open shop and employ a large percentage of the town. In my opinion, you don’t want that either. Too much dependency on one company can decimate a town when they leave. The best industry that could enter this town and be a huge plus for the economy would be a college campus. And today, there are new opportunities emerging that are location independent such as technology fields. Turtle Apps is a great example of that locally.
In terms of blame game, it is bothersome to me of the “spending my grandkids money” type of talk from many seniors. The only one spending your “grandkids money” is the seniors themselves. Social Security and Medicare were never a savings account for you. You are receiving your’s today from 6% of my salary and every other working person today. When you worked, you paid the people receiving then. You participated in and benefit from largest socialism program in our country’s history. Yet you talk of a President who is “socialist”. In terms of the “government messing that up”, where were those seniors when the government was messing it up and borrowing from it so many years ago prior to many of us not being of voting age at the time? Why were you not speaking out then? Why were you not looking to the future and seeing the corporate value structure in steep decline and today claim that we should somehow go back to “the good old days”? We do not have pensions today because your generation sold the public on this idea that 401k’s were better. Put it all on Wall Street. While the only one’s that benefited from that are your generation while mine and younger look now at working FT until we are about 90. You poorly managed our businesses. You mislead the country for the worst. You take from those working today, and yet you complain that others are the problem. I think, DLF, you and those retired like you need to take a real hard look in the mirror at who is to blame.
DLF says
BW: agree we should take a hard look in the mirror and what I see is a goverment (which you and I are part of) that has spendt us into the largest hole in the history of the USA. I am sure you enjoy many of these entitlement programs as I do and ones I paid into.. No ,Social Security was not or is not a retirement progam, nor was/is it a program to fund all the free programs that many Americans feel are their rights. Th bottom line is the negative numbers job, debt, home losses are on the way up, blame who you want. but that is a fact. Instead of working on spending like we have done for the last ten years we should be working on producing jobs, which we have not done; until we get closer to election time.