Florida’s unemployment rate improves for 2nd consecutive month, dips to 11.7 percent in May

Florida’s jobless rate improves 2nd month straight

MIAMI — More than 32,000 new U.S. Census jobs helped Florida’s unemployment rate improve for the second consecutive month — and just for the second time since 2006.

The Agency for Workforce Innovation said Friday the state unemployment rate for May was 11.7 percent, down 0.3 percentage point from April. That meant about a million were jobless out of a labor force of almost 9.3 million.

However, Florida’s unemployment rate ranked as the nation’s fifth highest, and well above the national average of 9.7 percent. The U.S. jobless rate fell 0.2 percentage points in May from the previous month, and there were fewer Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits for the third consecutive month.

U.S. census jobs alone accounted for the entire month’s gain of 20,300 jobs, and Florida’s chief economist Rebecca Rust said those numbers would soon taper sharply.

May was also the first month in which jobs related to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill response were counted. Florida has more than 4,200 such positions available, the state says, but so far only 302 residents are working them out of some 2,400 trained.

Rust said the state would begin in July to put hard numbers on the spill’s estimated economic impact. She said the process would be tough, giving the example of the fishing industry. Most fishermen are self-employed and therefore go uncounted in typical data input areas. The state uses surveys of workforce establishments and unemployment claims, for which the self-employed aren’t eligible, Rust said.

The Panhandle — the only area of Florida directly affected by the April 20 Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion that killed 11 — already had one of the state’s lowest concentrations of unemployment. Liberty County had the lowest jobless rate at 6.4 percent, and three nearby counties rounded out the state’s top seven. Monroe County in the Florida Keys had the second-best jobless rate at 7.1 percent.

Weakness in the construction, manufacturing and financial industries plagued the areas with the most out of work. Flagler County on the Atlantic Coast had the highest unemployment rate at 15.1 percent, followed by Hernando County on the Gulf Coast with 13.8 percent.

The total number of jobs in Florida was still down 50,300 from the same time last year to 7.2 million. The government and private education and health services sectors were the only areas with job growth among the state’s major industries. Federal spending accounted for the balance of government job increases.