Unemployment rate in Florida declines to 7.4%
But joblessness in Orlando area highest in state
Unemployment in Florida fell to 7.4% in August, a significant drop from previous months when joblessness was still in the double digits. But the Orlando area, where mass layoffs have displaced tens of thousands of workers, remains the worst place in the state for unemployment, at 11%.
It’s the first time since March, when the coronavirus outbreak was first beginning to spread throughout the United States, that Florida’s unemployment rate has dipped back to single digits. In July, it was 11.4%. Before the pandemic hit, Florida unemployment was at a record low of 2.8%.
Florida’s jobless rate is even below the national rate, 8.3%. Still, that figure represents about 753,000 Floridians who have lost their jobs, out of a labor force of more than 10 million.
The August numbers for the Orlando area, released by Department of Economic Opportunity on
Friday, are also the lowest since the pandemic and government shutdowns forced businesses to close and start trimming staff. At its worst in May, unemployment in Central Florida surged to 22.6%.
Adrienne Johnston, chief of the DEO’s bureau of labor market statistics, credited schools reopening with helping to drive down the number of out-of-work Floridians. Even in school districts where a majority of students are learning virtually, she said reopening was a “significant factor” that also allowed some parents to return to work.
About 10,500 jobs in the education industry were added back in August.
Overall, the DEO said Florida has gained back more than half of the 1.1 million jobs that were lost from February to April. But other industries are still reeling, particularly tourism.
SeaWorld this month permanently laid off 1,900 workers who had been on temporary furloughs at its three Orlando theme parks, and Universal Orlando extended unpaid furloughs for 5,400 people. Hotels across Central Florida, citing dismal occupancy, also have been laying off workers in droves.
In all, only 2,600 leisure and hospitality jobs were gained in August, a sector that includes theme parks, hotels, restaurants and bars.
Osceola and Orange counties, where a large concentration of theme park workers live, also again had the worst rates of unemployment.
In Osceola, unemployment was at 15.1% in August, and in Orange, it was at 11.6%.
Earlier this month, Florida’s chief economist Amy Baker told lawmakers she did not expect state unemployment to fall to 6% until April 2023, explaining that it could take as many as three years for the tourism industry to recover from the economic fallout of the pandemic.
Asked if August’s numbers were perhaps an indication of a quicker recovery, Johnston said it was too early to tell.
“Those are longer-term projections and they encapsulate a lot of different factors,” Johnston said of Baker’s forecast. “Right now we’re looking at truly how businesses are reopening month to month. So I think it’s just a little too early to tell how a month-to-month change like this is going to compare to a couple years out.”
Osceola leaders this week issued a plea to Gov. Ron DeSantis to quickly release more relief money, pointing to charities and food pantries that are running out of funding to feed some of the county ’s 400,000 residents, a quarter of which are families with children living below the poverty line.
Unlike larger counties that received their portions of federal CARES Act money straight from the federal government, Osceola has had to wait for the state to release its share in phases. To date, its received about $16 million and is waiting on another $50 million.
Still unclear is how the now-declining unemployment rate will affect how much longer Floridians can collect state unemployment benefits.
Because of changes made to the state’s program in 2011 — the result of a hard push from business lobbying groups to slash taxes for large corporations — Florida residents can right now only collect unemployment for 12 weeks.
That’s because Florida, with the support of then Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican-controlled Legislature, instituted a slidingscale formula that tied the length of time workers could receive unemployment insurance to the state’s unemployment rate. The number of weeks can be extended to as many as 23, if the state’s average unemployment goes above 10.5% in the fall. But that extension can only occur in October.
About 500,000 Floridians who exhausted the 12 weeks provided by the state, among the fewest weeks provided in the country, have been able to stay on unemployment through a federal program introduced after the pandemic struck.
Floridians have also relied on supplemental federal payouts to bolster the meager maximum they can get from the state of $275. Those still unemployed have received about $1,200 through four payments part of President Trump’s Lost Wages Assistance Program.
Anticipating the devastation of the pandemic to last well into 2021, some lawmakers have called on DeSantis to restore Florida’s unemployment system to pre-2011 levels so those out of work can collect increased benefits longer.
However, DeSantis has stated that he doesn’t have the power to do that, and Republican legislators have already rejected returning for a special session for that purpose.