Florida jobless rate drops again to 10.6 percent

By BILL KACZOR

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.

Florida's unemployment rate dropped slightly in May, decreasing for a fifth straight month, and the state led the nation in job growth over the month, labor officials said Friday.

The Agency for Workforce Innovation announced Florida's seasonally adjusted jobless rate was down by two-tenths of a percentage point to 10.6 percent, but that's still the fourth highest rate in the nation.

Florida also added 28,000 nonagricultural jobs in May, an increase of 0.4 percent. That put Florida in first place nationally. Ohio was second with 12,000 jobs followed by Louisiana with 10,000 and Texas with 8,800, said agency economist Rebecca Rust.

The number of nonagricultural jobs in the state is up 24,900 over the year, an increase of 0.3 percent from May 2010. The over-the-year figure is lower because of job losses in several of those 12 months. Florida ranks eighth-best nationally in this category.

"Our unemployment rate is now the lowest it has been in 21 months, and we can expect our state's heightened focus on economic recovery to spur additional job growth in the months ahead," said Cynthia Lorenzo, the agency's director.

It'll need to grow considerably, though, for Gov. Rick Scott to keep his promise of adding 700,000 new jobs in seven years. Those would be in addition to the million jobs expected to be created over that span as Florida's economy recovers from the Great Recession. If job growth continues at the annual current rate, Florida would add only 174,300 new jobs in seven years, far short of Scott's goal.

While Florida's jobless rate has dropped every month since the Republican governor took office in January, it remained 1.5 percentage points above the national unemployment rate for May of 9.1 percent

"Since I took office, we've created 76,000 jobs for parents, recent graduates, workforce veterans and all Floridians who have been struggling to get back on their feet," Scott said in a statement. He called the continuing decline in Florida's unemployment rate and the state's leadership in job creation last month as "a huge win for Floridians."

"It is unfortunate the federal government can't say the same thing for the rest of the country," Scott said. "Our efforts to make Florida the most business friendly state are clearly paying off and we are bucking the national trend."

Not all assessments of Florida's economic outlook were so glowing, though.

Florida's economy is "moving at the speed of a glacier" and hiring probably won't really accelerate until next year, said University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith.

May was the eighth consecutive month to have job growth compared with the same month in the previous year since Florida started losing jobs in July 2007.

The leisure and hospitality industry led the way by adding 45,100 jobs, an increase of 4.9 percent, since May 2010.

"This is due to food services and drinking places," Rust said.

Other sectors with growth include private education, health services, trade, transportation, utilities, and professional and business services.

For the first time, government, once one of Florida's strongest job sectors, has become its weakest, losing 41,500 jobs over the year. The biggest factor in that 3.6 percent decline has been the loss of temporary census jobs, but state employment also dropped, Rust said.

Next hardest-hit has been construction, losing 14,500 jobs, or 4.1 percent, since May of last year. Counties with the highest unemployment rates have been heavily affected by construction job losses.

April marked the first time fewer than a million Floridians were out of work since October 2009. The trend continued in May, with 980,000 jobless workers in the state. That's 17,000 fewer than April.

May's unemployment rate declined even though Florida's labor force increased by 5,000.

Scott, who campaigned on a platform of job growth through making Florida friendlier to business, on Tuesday signed a new law designed to foster economic development by consolidating most of those activities into a new Department of Economic Opportunity effective Oct. 1.

The law also is expected to help the state more quickly react to business development opportunities by shortening the deadline for acting on incentive funding requests to 10 days instead of as many as 42 and letting Scott hand out incentives of up to $2 million without legislative approval.

The counties with the lowest unemployment largely remain those with a heavy reliance on government employment despite heavy job losses in that sector. Monroe, which includes the Florida Keys, posted the lowest rate of 6.3 percent in May, followed by Liberty, 6.5 percent; Walton, 6.6 percent; Okaloosa, 6.9 percent; and Lafayette, 7.1 percent.

Flagler had Florida's highest jobless rate in May at 13.8 percent. Next were Miami-Dade, 13.7 percent; Hendry, 13.3 percent; Hernando, 12.9 percent; and Indian River and St. Lucie, both 12.5 percent.

Thirty-two of Florida's 67 counties had double-digit jobless rates.

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Associated Press Economics Writer Christopher S. Rugaber in Washington contributed to this report.