Flagler County’s economy continued to improve in December, with the unemployment rate falling to 5.5 percent, a new low since the Great Recession, and a vastly improved rate since even a year ago, when it stood at 6.9 percent. Flagler’s rate has gradually approached Florida’s and the nation, both of which stood at 5 percent in December.
The number of people holding jobs–full or part-time–did not significantly increase in Flagler last month, growing by just 24, to 40,294, an improvement of 561 over the year. But the number of unemployed residents declined by 72, while the workforce barely budged at 42,647, an increase of about 150 since last year.
Florida added 21,900 jobs for a total of 233,100 non-agricultural jobs added to the state’s rolls since last year. There were 487,000 jobless Floridians out of a labor force of 9.7 million.
Gov. Rick Scott, announcing the jobs report in Estero, south of Cape Coral, this morning, focused on his proposal to cut $1 billion in taxes even though the state’s revenue-estimating conference last week revealed that the state will have $400 million less in revenue than previously calculated for the budget year starting on July 1. Overall, however, state revenue is still projected to increase by $1.2 billion over the current budget year. Earlier this week Scott’s office termed the new calculation “a minor reduction.”
No single job sector had an outstanding December, with gains spread more or less evenly across industries. The biggest gains were in administrative and waste services, which added 10,500 jobs (a 1.7 percent increase) real estate, rental and leasing, with 2,000 jobs (1.1 percent), non-durable goods manufacturing, which added 1,400 jobs (1.3 percent) and educational services, which added 1,600 jobs (1 percent).
Monroe County had the state’s lowest unemployment rate (3.2 percent), followed by St. Johns County (3.5 percent) and Alachua and Wakulla counties (4.0 percent each). Hendry County had the highest unemployment rate (7.3 percent) in Florida in December 2015, followed by Citrus (6.6 percent), Putnam (6.4 percent), and Highlands and Sumter (6.3 percent). No county had a double-digit unemployment rate for December.
Florida job postings showed 282,386 openings in December 2015.
The full jobs report is below.
Click to access december-unemployment-florida.pdf
Knightwatch says
Yep, Republicans are right … the economy is in the dumps.
PCer says
And republicans will say that those who are employed are underemployed or that many are just not reporting… but they do nothing to create new jobs.
truth says
people who have a job that pays nothing and gives them something to do for 13 hours or less a week is not a job. Take away every “job” that pays under 25,000 a year see where the employment numbers are. if you have to have several jobs just to make ends meet or work under 35 hours at one job that doesn’t help the economy or that person. the lets get everyone a pay check for any amount and then paint a picture of a booming economy in such a joke. Create JOBS and not loopholes to make the numbers look good.
Knightwatch says
Truth, I honestly don’t know how to answer all that, but to help make you feel better about the U.S. economy, I’ll try.
Jobs that pay nothing, and jobs for 13 hours per week are certainly not included in the employment statistic. Why would we “take away every job” that pays under $25,000 a year? It’s not a lot of money, but it’s double the poverty level for a single person, and $10,000 above that for a family of two. So, why is that so bad we wouldn’t count such jobs? And we’ve counted employment statistics the same way for years. So, comparing today’s unemployment rate to that of, 2009, the peak of the Great Recession, shows unemployment dropping from 9.9% to 5%. We’ve added 9 million new jobs since 2009, twice the rate of growth of any other industrialized country. So, so sooth your concern, you can see that we’ve added jobs … honest!
Hammock says
Oh yea? The is from the bureau of labor statistics: Who is counted as employed?
People are considered employed if they did any work at all for pay or profit during the survey reference week. This includes all part-time and temporary work, as well as regular full-time, year-round employment.
Econ professor says
Truth is correct. If you get a w-2 and you are listed as an employee of a business then you are show as employed. Doesn’t matter if you work 1hour a week or make min wage. All jobs are counted and used to beef up the job creation numbers. And people can not live on 25000 a year. Unless your home and transportation is payed off. Then you also have to know that people who have used up all their government assistance and can’t claim are not shown as unemployed as well as those who just haven’t claimed unemployment for what ever reason. These things make job creation look really good and unemployment look good also. But numbers don’t make for reality.
Sherry says
For those still drinking “conspiracy theory Kool-Aid” , according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the calculation of the Unemployment Rate has not changed since 1994. So, President Obama is NOT cooking the books!
Check this out, though, for a bird’s eye view of state by state unemployment during the terms of the last few Presidents. . . very Cool: http://dailysignal.com/2014/07/25/animated-u-s-maps-show-unemployment-changes-last-6-presidents/.
groot says
Not to stop the champagne from flowing but 5.5% is not all that great. There are areas of the country that had 5.5% at the height of the recession. Get it down to 3% or less and then celebrate.