Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Florida’s unemployment claims fall after reopenings
Florida’s first-time unemployment claims decreased to 33,821 for the week ended Sept. 12 — now that local economies are gradually regaining momentum under Phase 2 reopenings from COVID-19.
The state numbers were shown to have declined by 6,435 from an adjusted 40,256 initial claims filed in the previous week.
Nationally, the figure for initial claims was 860,000, a decline of 33,000 from the week ended Sept. 5, the U.S. Department of Labor said Thursday.
“Key states including California, Texas, Florida, New York and New Jersey saw welcome weekly declines,” said Mark Hamrick, senior economics analyst at Bankrate.
“Some of the key pain points for the economy remain as before including small business, airlines, bars and restaurants and retailers,” he added. “At the same time, interest rate-sensitive sectors including housing fare relatively well. Builder sentiment just notched a record high as just one positive sign for the housing market.”
The employment market continues to gradually add back jobs since mid-March, but the pace of recovery remains slow.
As of the end of July, there were 6.6 million openings nationwide for 16.3 million unemployed, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
On Friday, the state Department of Economic Opportunity will disclose the August unemployment figure for Florida and discuss job gains and losses by industry for the month.
In July, the jobless rate rose to 11.3% from June’s level of 10.4%.