Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on May 17 announced that the Pensacola area added 2,900 new private-sector jobs in the past year. The area’s unemployment rate was 2.8 percent in April, down 0.5 percentage point from one year ago.
The industry with the highest growth over the year in the Pensacola area was education and health services with 1,000 new jobs. In April, Pensacola area had 6,276 job openings and of those, 1,773 were for high-skill, high-wage STEM jobs, per DeSantis.
Other data shows that statewide, Florida businesses created 16,000 new private-sector jobs in April 2019. Florida’s annual private-sector job growth rate of 2.7 percent continues to exceed the nation’s rate of 2.0 percent. Florida’s unemployment rate of 3.4 percent represents a drop of 0.3 percentage point over the year. This is while 136,000 people entered Florida’s labor force, a growth of 1.3 percent in the past year.
According to DeSantis’ office, positive economic indicators for the month of April that show how Florida continues to attract and grow businesses include:
- Florida’s private-sector businesses created more than 203,000 jobs over the year and 16,000 in April 2019.
- Florida’s annual private-sector job growth rate of 2.7 percent continues to outpace the national job growth rate of 2.0 percent.
- A low unemployment rate of 3.4 percent.
- The labor force continued to grow with 136,000 people entering the labor force over the year at an annual growth rate of 1.3 percent.
“It is important that we continue to strive to make Florida the ideal location for new and growing businesses,” said DeSantis. “We need to keep working hard as we prepare for all economic possibilities. We have to keep taxes low, regulations reasonable and support career and technical education to ensure Floridians are able to achieve long-term economic prosperity.”
Director of the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity Ken Lawson weighed in.
“Our low unemployment rates and high job creation shows that Floridians are benefiting from a robust and diverse economic environment,” Lawson said. “We will continue to prioritize disaster recovery, community investments and workforce development so Floridians can create resilient communities across the state.”
