Florida’s unemployment claims decline sharply

Businesses battle back against COVID-19

Florida’s first-time unemployment claims took another steep drop to 39,335 for the week ended Aug. 29 as the COVID-19 depressed economy continued to show it is on a slow path to recovery.

State claims declined by another 12,312 from 51,747, the U.S. Department of Labor reported Thursday. Nationally, the claims figure dipped below 1 million for just the second time since mid-March to 881,000, a decrease of 130,000 from the previous week of 1,011,000. The numbers are the lowest since the coronavirus pandemic gripped the economy and caused unemployment to surge to unprecedented numbers in March.

“We’ll take good news when we can get it,” said Mark Hamrick, a senior economic analyst at Bankrate. “Jobless claims came in better than expected and are on the decline.”

But in some ways, he said, “the economy is now engaged in a tug of war,”

“On one side, the housing market, auto sales, ascendant stock market and resurging manufacturing are flexing strength,” he said. “On the other, the leisure and hospitality, aspects of retailing, travel-related, energy, agricultural and commercial real estate and construction sectors are struggling.”

As of Tuesday, the most recent day for which data is available, the state Department of Economic Opportunity had paid 1,937,633 people nearly $14.7 billion in state and federal unemployment benefits. Most of the money includes weekly payments of $600 under a federal program that expired at the end of July.

More than 3.6 million jobless claims have been processed since mid-March, representing 99.1% of those submitted, the agency said.

But there was still no word from the state as to when temporary $300 weekly payments from the federal government would start flowing to eligible unemployed workers in Florida. Last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Florida had applied to Washington to participate in a “Lost Wage Assistance Program” authorized by an executive order signed by President Donald Trump. The application was approved by FEMA, which is providing the funding from a $44 billion pool of emergency disaster money.

Last Friday, DeSantis said he expected the payments would be retroactive to Aug. 1. To be eligible, jobless workers must be collecting at least $100 per week in unemployment insurance compensation through state or federal programs.

Labor market in a “modest” upswing, Atlanta Fed says

In the meantime, the labor market recovery continued its modest improvement

“as firms slowly recalled workers,” according to the most recent periodic “Beige Book” summary of the Southeast’s economy by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

The bank’s conclusions are based on interviews with business contacts in the region, which includes Florida.

“Although labor conditions improved modestly since the previous report, payrolls remain below pre-COVID levels and the outlook for further improvements was less certain,” said the report, which was released Wednesday. “Firms continued to slowly recall workers as demand returned. However, many [businesses] noted that some prior staff cutbacks were permanent, and others had used attrition to reduce headcount.”

Tourism and hospitality, one of the worst sectors of the COVID-19 job market, remained soft.

Retail job opportunities were mixed as consumers who own homes kept the home improvement and renovation segment strong, but clothing sales stayed soft. Auto dealers said sales increased.

Homebuyers kept real estate sales agents busy as residential sales strengthened.

Manufacturing “accelerated somewhat,” while banks said that loan growth had slowed and underwriting standards got tighter.

Two weeks ago, the state reported that private sector businesses in Florida added 74,100 between June and July.