Flagler County’s 4.6% Unemployment Is Highest in Three Years; Florida’s Rate Stays at 3.3% for 4th Month

Flagler County’s unemployment rate of 4.6 percent in July was the highest since August 2021, when it was 4.9 percent and rapidly falling from its Covid-era high of 11.1 percent the year before.

For most of the past two years, the county’s unemployment rate has fluctuated within a narrow band of 3 to 4 percent or a shade over, as in June, when it was 4.2 percent. The numbers are not seasonally adjusted.




The 2,372 people drawing unemployment in July–an increase of 225 people from June–is also the highest number since August 2021, when 2,380 people were on unemployment. The number of Flagler County residents holding jobs fell by 63. A single month’s spike is not unusual and is not indicative of a trend. But combined with other numbers, it may signal the beginning of one.

But for a single month last September, when the number of people holding jobs in the county crossed the 50,000 mark for the first time in the county’s history (50,138), the county has struggled to cross that threshold again, even though until then the number of job-holders had been growing rapidly from its pre-covid total of 46,000. The labor force had also been gaining steadily until last August, when it peaked at 52,293, a record. It has fallen since. In July, it was 51,739, about where it stood in January.

That suggests the county’s influx of new residents, especially working-age families, has slowed, even as monthly sales of single-family homes in the past year have continued at a rate of between 200 and 300 a month. Median sale prices have flattened in the $380,000 to $390,000 range over that period.




Florida’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 3.3 percent in July, the same rate it’s been for the last four months, with 366,000 Floridians officially unemployed and almost 10 million holding jobs. The state added 21,800 jobs over the month.

Official unemployment figures are deceptive, since they only count the workers who follow the state’s strict guidelines to be counted as unemployed, which require workers to document rigorous job searching over the past four months, enabling them to receive weekly unemployment of up to $275. But Florida’s unemployment benefits are the stingiest in the nation, ending after just 12 months. Once a worker has exhausted the 12-month allowance, the worker is no longer counted among the unemployed.

The federal government calculates the “alternative measures of labor underutilization for states,” which counts discouraged workers as well as workers employed part-time for economic reasons–workers who could not find full-time work or because their hours have been cut back. That rate for Florida was 5.9 percent in the second quarter of 2024.

In another worrisome sign, every one of Florida’s 67 counties showed an increase in unemployment, compared to a year ago, including St. Johns County, which usually has one of the state’s lowest unemployment rate (3.4 percent, up from 2.8 percent last year), and Miam-Dade, which had posted unemployment rates of less than 2 percent, but was up to 3.1 percent in July.




Curiously, consumer sentiment among Floridians increased in June and July, rising to 74.4 points, according to the University of Florida’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research, while national consumer sentiment fell for the fourth consecutive month.

“Notably, future economic expectations are at their highest levels since summer 2021, reflecting positive economic prospects among Floridians,” said Hector Sandoval, director of the Economic Analysis Program at the bureau. “Moreover, as inflation recedes, it is likely that the Fed will begin cuƫting interest
rates later this year, which could further enhance economic conditions.” UF’s report was issued before this week’s report showing the consumer price index slowing to an annualized 2.9 percent in July, its lowest level in three years.

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