Flagler County’s Jobless Rate Spikes to 6.1 Percent, Highest Since October 2020, and Labor Force Stalls

Flagler County’s unemployment rate in November spiked sharply to 6.1 percent, up from 5 percent in September and 4.1 percent last year. The November rate was the highest in five years. Unemployment was at 6.2 percent in October 2020, when the country was recovering rapidly from the Covid shutdown that April. The trend back then was positive. It is negative now.

Flagler County’s unemployment rate is not seasonally adjusted. Florida’s adjusted rate was 4.2 percent, up 0.3 percent from September and 0.7 percent from a year ago. The state lost a net 300 jobs over the month, according to figures released by the state Department of Commerce on Wednesday. There was no unemployment report for October due to the federal government shutdown.

Flagler County’s labor force, which had been growing steadily, at times sharply, since 2018, has stalled, remaining flat at around 55,500 all year, with statistically insignificant shifts up and down over the past 12 months. The labor force, an indicator of working-age families, has not grown significantly in over two years.

The number of unemployed people in Flagler County, however, has risen sharply, to 3,379, the highest number since September 2020. In another alarming indication of economic slowdown, the number of Flagler County residents holding jobs fell to 52,192, the lowest level since February 2023.

Flagler County Tourism Director Amy Lukasik, who also oversees the county’s economic development division, said that absent hard data and going by her gut, her first thought was to attribute the rising unemployment to job losses at Boston Whaler, the county’s leading manufacturer whose local plant is shutting down and migrating its workforce to Edgewater.

A job holder does not necessarily have to be holding a job located in Flagler County. The figures reflect the job status of Flagler County residents regardless of job locations. If Boston Whaler employees work in Edgewater and still live in Flagler, they are recorded as employed. A person is recorded as having a job even if the person logged a single hour of paid work for the period surveyed.

Lukasik said tourist tax revenue grew by 3 percent last year (compared with 2024), in contrast with neighboring counties that saw a drop. This fiscal year, revenue is up just 1 percent in the first two months of collection. Lukasik said hotel and motel bookings were down by double digits, but that vacation rentals made up the loss, suggesting that luxury travel is holding up, but not so much for non-luxury tourism.

“People are still traveling but it’s more shorter-term bookings,” Lukasik said, and once people get to their destination, they’re not spending as much money. “We’re not the only ones feeling it.”

Home sales in Flagler County, always an indicator of activity in one of the county’s leading economic sectors, remain strong, according to figures tallied by the Flagler County Association of Realtors. But sales have also cooled perceptibly, with not a single month registering 300 sales in almost two years. In 2021, the 300-home-sales mark was exceeded seven of the 12 months.

There were just 241 closed sales for single-family houses in October, at a median sale price of $375,200, about 1.5 percent higher than a year ago. The media sale price has been relatively flat since dropping from its peak of $400,000 in mid-2022.

Among the clearer indications of a slowdown: the median time to a contract has gone from around 10 days in the best months of 2021 and 2022 to over 80 days for the last three successive months–and rising: it was 91 days in October, with the median time to a sale at 126 days–time spans last seen 12 years ago, when the county was recovering from the housing crash. Nevertheless, new listings have been around or below 400 a month, not much different than in 2021.

The county’s inventory of available houses had grown to 1,500 last June, but the number has been falling every month since, to 1,246 in October, an encouraging sign for home sellers, especially with several subdivisions bringing new inventory to market.

Statewide, consumer confidence declined overall in 2025, ending December well below January levels across demographic groups even as it rose modestly between November and December, according to the University of Florida’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research. National consumer sentiment rose 1.9 points over the month.

Any confidence gains following the 2024 election faded as policy uncertainty, labor-market softening and persistent inflation weighed on outlooks, according to Hector Sandoval, director of the Economic Analysis Program at UF. While Federal Reserve rate cuts lowered borrowing costs, they were not enough to offset broader economic concerns.

“As the new year begins, while consumer sentiment declined across sociodemographic groups and across all five components of the index over the course of 2025, the economy enters 2026 with economic agents potentially becoming more accustomed to recent policy changes,” he said. “As policies begin to settle, uncertainty may ease, which could lead to smaller swings in consumer sentiment over the year ahead.”

Floridians’ expectations about future economic conditions improved in December, with all three forward-looking components increasing. Expectations of personal finances a year from now rose 3.2 points from 85.9 to 89.1. Expectations regarding U.S. economic conditions over the next year increased 1.1 points from 75.5 to 76.6.