Flagler County’s unemployment rate rose to 6 percent in January, up from 4.5 percent in December, the highest rate in five and a half years and the sharpest month-over-month increase since the pandemic labor shock of April 2020. The figures are not seasonally adjusted.
The labor force was flat at 56,000, but the number of county residents who filed for unemployment rose by 400.
Even St. Johns County, consistently a juggernaut of jobs and growth for the past five years, saw its unemployment rate jump to 5.1 percent, from 4.5 percent the previous month, and from 3.6 percent a year ago. Volusia County’s unemployment rate jumped to 5.8 percent from 5.2 in December, and Putnam’s to 6.4 percent, from 5.8.
In Florida, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose two decimal points to 4.5 percent in January, compared to 3.5 percent a year ago, with 499,000 officially jobless Floridians. The state added a net 21,400 jobs over the month but lost 20,600 jobs over the year. Nationally, the number of jobs rose 0.2 percent over the year. The national unemployment rate is 4.3 percent. The number of unemployed only reflects those who are receiving unemployment benefits, which run out after 12 weeks in Florida.
The rate does not reflect the under-employed–such as those employed part-time because they could not find full-time work (almost 350,000 workers), or because their hours were cut back–or discouraged workers who have either stopped looking for work or are no longer eligible for benefits. The federal government’s alternative measure of unemployment, the so-called U-6 rate, takes account of those categories. By that measure, 7.9 percent of Floridians were unemployed or underemployed. The national rate is 8 percent.
The Florida Commerce Department’s jobless figures for January were released last week, the result of an annual process known as “benchmarking,” which revises the previous year’s figures. February data will be released on April 17.
Flagler County’s unemployment rate rose to 5.9 percent last November, and Palm Coast’s to 5.8, after starting 2025 at 4.4 and 4.3 percent. The last time either saw an unemployment rate at 6 percent was in October 2020, when Flagler’s was at 6.2 percent and Palm Coast’s at 6.4 percent, and both were rapidly returning to pre-Covid, low unemployment rates.
At the time, the labor force was 47,346 in Flagler County and 37,623 in Palm Coast. The number of unemployed residents was 2,947 and 2,386.
Excluding the Covid pandemic, the last time Flagler County saw its unemployment rate at 6 percent through normal economic fluctuations was in November 2015. The housing crash had caused the county’s rate to be the highest in the state for a certain period after the 2008 crash and the county struggled for years to return to what is considered full employment–below 4 percent.
The Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Florida reported that consumer confidence in Florida declined in March to 78.1 from a revised figure of 79.1 in February. National consumer sentiment also declined, decreasing 3.3 points over the month.
“This month’s decline was driven primarily by reduced spending intentions and growing concerns about the national economy, particularly over the next 12 months,” said Hector H. Sandoval, director of the economic analysis program that produces the reports. “At the same time, some indicators remained positive, as Floridians reported improved views of their current personal financial situation and stronger expectations for their finances over the next year. These mixed signals are consistent with a more uncertain economic environment.”
The report did not reflect effects of the Iran war or the early-April inflation report, which showed inflation sharply accelerating to 3.3 percent, from 2.4 percent in February. The acceleration was due in large part to increasing energy costs, with gas prices topping $4 a gallon on average in Florida and diesel prices rising faster.
Callmeishmael says
Winning!
Shark says
No too many job openings at those storage facilities !!!
Dennis C Rathsam says
Keep building more apt, & houses, while no one can find a job! Look at all the new stores & restaurants ,& still there’s no work!
Ray W. says
The Wall Street Journal just devoted significant space to a changing economic phenomenon, that of an evolving “breakeven rate”, with “breakeven rate” defined as the number of new jobs needed each month to keep the unemployment rate unchanged.
As an aside, and for perspective, numerous economists posit that a healthy unemployment rate ranges between 4% and 4.5%. With the nation’s February unemployment rate being 4.3%, that element of the national economy remains within a healthy range.
As a second aside, according to Department of Labor monthly jobs reports, since 1968, the only two times that the American unemployment rate dropped to as low as 3.4%, were the months of January and April of 2023, you know, the months when Joe and Kamala were, in the words of the pestilential among us, “destroying” America. Yes, despite immigrants coming into the country, so many jobs were being created that the unemployment rate fell to 55-year lows.
From other news sources, the breakeven rate in 2023 was a need for 250,000 new jobs added per month. Fewer than that figure and the unemployment rate rises. More? The unemployment rate drops.
In 2024, the breakeven rate fell to between 183k and 155k jobs added per month.
By the end of 2025, the breakeven rate had been reduced to as low as a negative 3k jobs per month.
Projections by a regional Fed bank have the breakeven rate at between negative 3k jobs per month and negative 15k jobs per month.
Back to the WSJ article.
Here are some bullet points:
– There are two sides to the productivity growth economic philosophy. First, additions to the labor force can drive productivity growth. Each worker added to the labor force adds his or her productivity to GDP. Second, additions to per worker productivity, usually through new technology, such as automation, can drive productivity growth. The reporter devotes space to the idea that businesses moving into a personal computer- driven business model increased per worker productivity up through the 1990’s.
– Today’s economy, faced with twin drags coming from the long-emerging Silver Tsunami of large numbers of Baby Boomers retiring and the more recent immigration outflow, no longer needs job growth to keep the national unemployment rate stable at 4.3%. Said Erik Brunjolssen, director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab:
“With labor-force growth slowing to a crawl, productivity no longer just one of the engines of growth – it’s close to the only engine left.
– For context, the reporter wrote that between 2007 and 2019, a period of 13 years, GDP growth averaged 1.5% per year. Between 2020 and 2026, GDP growth averaged 2.1% per year.
– Year-over-year through March 2026, the American labor force lost 554k workers, again due the Silver Tsunami effect of Boomer retirement and outmigration of immigrants from the labor force. American women, according to the reporter, are having babies at a record low rate.
– Several factors, though, may enhance the per worker productivity side of GDP growth.
– Since the pandemic, workers, displaced to their homes, became more productive. And, many businesses took advantage of the pandemic disruption to automate their processes.
– Workers have reduced their “quits” rate, meaning they have become less likely to quit their jobs. The reporter argues that workers who remain in their jobs tend to become more productive over time.
– Introduction of AI technology, more and more widespread beginning in 2022, is still somewhat limited compared to its potential. AI could, in the reporter’s description, drive productivity gains; it is, right now, a “general-purpose technology. “ But, as more and more businesses invest in the “complements” that enhance the efficiencies that AI could offer and as more and more workers are reorganized and retrained to better use the technology and as businesses build the “intangible capital” needed to maximize the potential that AI offers, then significant productivity growth could be effectively realized.
– One cautionary tale is the Japanese economy. With a shrinking population and a flat labor force, over the 26 years between 2000 and 2025, the country’s GDP averaged 0.7% growth.
– Fed governor Christopher Waller told an audience in February:
“Zero job growth just doesn’t map into any kind of stability in terms of employment and whatnot. … This would be the first time in my career, in my life, that I saw an economy growing like this and zero job growth. I don’t even know quite how to [think] about this because I’ve never seen this before.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Ever since I began reading about the collapse of the Tokyo commercial real estate sector in the late 1980’s, I came across explanation after explanation offered by prominent economists, in which they claimed that things were happening that had never before been seen.
Then, the Great Recession was something that economists had never before seen!
Then, the Pandemic Recession was something that had never before been seen by economists.
Each new disruptive event triggered economic debate about what should be done and no one knew what to do.
We have a Fed governor now saying he has never before seen what is happening. Then again, we have never before seen so few babies being born per woman, and we have seldom before seen so many Boomers retiring, and we have never before seen so many immigrants leaving the labor force.
This is what the Japanese government decided to do. It would use economic stimulus spending to match GDP output from the year before the crash, an approach never before tried. It worked, but at a psychological cost. Just as the economy was emerging out of recession, the populace, scared by the never-before-seen levels of deficit spending by the existing government, voted into office a new government that promised to end the spending. The Japanese economy immediately crashed back into recession and the economy has never returned to normal pre-crash GDP growth.
During the Great Recession, Congress authorized President GW Bush to spend some $2 trillion in unfunded stimulus money. When President Obama took office in 2009, he took up where Bush left off and he spent the rest of the authorized money. Eleven years on and economists were still arguing about whether the $2 trillion was too little or too much or just right.
Then the pandemic hit. Economists today are nowhere near finished with arguing about what should have been done in response to the crisis. Was the $10 or so trillion thrown at the problem too much? Too little? Just right?
I am not about to offer a solution. I am not an economist. At best, I am a curious student. If Christopher Waller says he has never in his lifetime seen what is happening today, I think he might be worth listening to. A whole lot of lying is going on right now. Waller strikes me as the only one who is telling the truth. I might be wrong, though.
The dude says
Florida man would much rather steal copper or illegally pick berries than punch a time clock.
This is a well known fact.
POed American says
The unadjusted rate at 7.9%? According to someone who’s name rhymes with “rump”, we have the best economy ever seen. The millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet are not fooled. Finding a job that pays a living wage and offers health insurance is getting more difficult every month. Hungary won’t be the only country to make a big change.
Jay Tomm says
Oh God…please stop the blame games. Support your position with facts & not news media hype!
The facts are Flagler doesn’t have jobs to begin with. Add increases in population in 5 years, cost of everything rising(and this wasn’t Trump’s doing) and you get high local unemployment.
Something I do blame on Trump though..interest rates. They should have remained high (actually NORMAL). Wiping out any chances for Americans to save money getting them low again.. We had 20 years of low rates & the economy still was in the tank. Rich get richer poor get ebt cards.
Endless dark money says
Thank a rapeublican ! Murikkka has created zero jobs since pedo king announced his tariffs on the entire world including Antarctica.
Welcome in depression 2.0! pedo king says” affordability “is a democratic hoax. I told that to pc utility company for my 200$ monthly bill but they didn’t seem to agree….never trust a rapeublican!