Florida’s unemployment rate dips to 6.1%

614,000 remain jobless, a decline of nearly 40,000 from November

Florida’s unemployment rate declined to 6.1% in December as the state’s policy of avoiding lockdowns helped keep the financial recovery in motion even as the

COVID-19 pandemic grows.

Some 614,000 Floridians remained jobless out of a work force of 10.14 million, a decline of nearly 40,000 from the month before. The U.S. unemployment rate was 6.7% in December.

Statewide, private sector businesses gained 21,100 jobs between November and December, with professional and business services; financial activities; trade, transportation and utilities; and construction leading the way, according to the state Department of Economic Opportunity.

Unemployment was still far higher than the 3.5% of a year earlier. In November of this year, it was 6.3% after a seasonal adjustment.

“Florida’s economy has shown significant progress for the past eight consecutive months and continues to outpace the nation in job growth,” Dane Eagle, the DEO’s executive director, said in a statement.

At a midday press conference in Key Largo, Gov. Ron DeSantis declared that the declining jobless figures proved his point that shutting down some or all of the economy to fight the pandemic is damaging to the economy and ineffective in deflecting the virus.

“Businesses have the right to operate,” he said,. “The lockdowns don’t work. The jury is in on that.”

But the pandemic’s toll on the state’s job market continued to make itself known through the lens of year-over-year comparisons.

The Broward County area unemployment rate was 6.6%, down from 7% in November. It reached its pandemic pinnacle in May at 15.2%. Financial activities was the industry to gain the most jobs year over year, the DEO said.

But private-sector employment decreased by 60,100 jobs, or 7.8%. The industry losing the most jobs year over year was leisure and hospitality, which showed a decline of 23,400 jobs.

Palm Beach County’s unemployment rate fell to 5.5% for December, down from 5.9% in November and down from a pandemic high of 14.2% in April, the DEO said. Construction gained the most jobs over the year, up 600 positions. Private-sector employment fell by 35,300 jobs, or 6.1%, year over year. As in Broward, the industry losing the most jobs was leisure and hospitality, which lost 17,200 positions since December 2019.

In Miami-Dade, the jobless rate fell to 7.3% from 7.9% in November.

The state’s tourism and consumer sensitive economy remains vulnerable to wary consumers who are averse to travel, extensive

Unemployment fliers stand at CareerSource in Hollywood on Nov. 6.

shopping trips and leisure activities. With revenue hard to come by, there is less incentive for employers to hire more workers, unless more aid comes from Washington, economists suggest.

At the end of December, thousands of previously announced layoffs by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts and other hotels and entertainment-related businesses

in Central Florida took effect.

“The worsening pandemic is making consumers more cautious about venturing out of their homes in the winter months, a setback for congregate businesses, while other sectors of the economy that are less affected by the pandemic continue to recover,” said a report released Monday by PNC Financial Services.

PNC said retail sales fell in December for a third consecutive month, down 0.7% from November.