Florida's jobless rates drops slightly in July to 3.7%

Jacksonville unemployment rate at 3.8% in July

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida's unemployment rate dipped slightly in July.

State officials announced Friday the unemployment rate dropped to 3.7 percent last month. That's lower than the national rate of 3.9 percent.

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The latest estimates say there are about 383,000 unemployed people out of a workforce of more than 10.2 million.

National data shows Florida added the second highest amount of jobs in the nation last month. California added 46,700 jobs while Florida picked up 27,400 jobs.

Florida has added 210,600 total jobs since July 2017. California added nearly 333,000 jobs while Texas added more than 377,000.

MORE: State job growth stats

Florida's overall growth rate for the last 12 months was 2.5 percent, which was tied for the nation's 7th highest rate.

The Jacksonville area added 21,800 new private-sector jobs in the past year, creating the fourth-highest number of jobs among all Florida metro areas. Jacksonville’s unemployment rate was 3.8 percent in July, down 0.4 percentage point from one year ago. 

The industries with the highest growth over the year in Jacksonville were leisure and hospitality with 5,100 new jobs, and trade, transportation, and utilities with 3,900 jobs.

The Jacksonville area once again rounded out the top five metro areas in job demand, with 18,861 openings, and had the fifth-highest number of openings for high-skill, high-wage STEM occupations with 5,286 online openings. 

Okaloosa and St. Johns counties had the lowest unemployment rate. Hendry County had the highest.


About the Authors:

A Jacksonville native and proud University of North Florida alum, Francine Frazier has been with News4Jax since 2014 after spending nine years at The Florida Times-Union.