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Gov. Scott: Jacksonville Area Ranks Fourth in State Job Creation

March 26, 2018
Today, Governor Rick Scott announced that the Jacksonville area added 18,100 new private-sector jobs in the last year, creating the fourth-highest number of jobs among all Florida metro areas. Jacksonville’s unemployment rate was 3.5 percent in February, down 0.8 percentage point from one year ago. Statewide, Florida businesses created more than 25,000 new jobs in February bringing the total number of new private-sector jobs created in Florida to nearly 1.5 million since December 2010.
 
Governor Scott said, “Thanks to our efforts to make Florida more business-friendly by cutting taxes, including nearly $550 million in tax cuts during the most recent legislative session, Florida businesses have created nearly 1.5 million jobs across the state since 2010. This economic growth is also clear in Jacksonville, where businesses created more than 18,000 new jobs for families in Northeast Florida in the last year alone.”
 
The industries with the highest growth over the year in Jacksonville were trade, transportation and utilities with 3,900 new jobs; construction with 3,800 new jobs; and leisure and hospitality with 3,000 new jobs. The Jacksonville area once again rounded out the top five metro areas in job demand, with 20,044 openings, and continued to have the fourth-highest number of openings for high-skill, high-wage STEM occupations with 5,796 online openings.
 
As of February, Florida’s unemployment rate is at 3.9 percent, a drop of 6.9 percentage points since December 2010; this drop is faster than the national decline of 5.2 percentage points. In the last year, 136,000 people entered Florida’s labor force, a growth of 1.4 percent, which is greater than the national labor force growth rate of 1.2 percent.
 
To view the February 2018 employment data, visit www.floridajobs.org/labor-market-information/labor-market-information-press-releases/monthly-press-releases.