Irma leaves mark on state’s economy
Home sales, job growth plummet in county, too; effect likely temporary.
Hurricane Irma disrupted Florida’s economy in September, slowing job growth and scotching home sales.
Even so, the storm seemed to deliver only a glancing blow to the state’s labor and housing markets. Palm Beach County’s jobless rate fell to 3.6 percent and Florida unemployment dipped to 3.8 percent, both decade-long lows.
However, Irma knocked Florida from its perennial perch as the nation’s leader in job growth. In August, before the storm hit, Florida boasted annual job growth of 2.6 percent, the best among large states and near the top overall.
In September, Florida’s yearover-year job growth slowed to just 0.9 percent, placing it in the bottom half of all states. And Palm Beach County fared even worse, expanding employment at a pace of 0.8 percent.
“Hurricane Irma was the largest storm we have seen, which affected our entire state and led to the largest evacuation and power restoration effort,” Gov. Rick Scott said in a statement. “Obviously, our jobs numbers were affected because of this.”
Irma also made a mark on Florida’s housing market. Statewide, home sales plunged 20 percent from a year ago, falling to 18,030 in September. The slowdown was even more dramatic in Palm Beach County, where sales plummeted 26 percent compared to September 2016.
“In addition to most businesses losing up to five working days, no closings could take place until FEMA lifted our disaster-area status,” said Jeffrey Levine, a West Palm Beach broker and first vice president of the Realtors of the Palm Beaches and Greater Fort Lauderdale. “I anticipate a substantial increase in closed sales in the coming months as everyone recovers from lost time and resources due to the storm.”
Palm Beach County prices also softened a bit. The median price of houses sold by Realtors in September was $325,000, up a bit from a year ago but down from
summertime levels that went as high as $345,000.
Realtors noted that the decline had nothing to do with the underlying demand for housing — and everything to do with Irma.
Before the storm made landfall Sept. 10, Floridians spent days preparing and evacuating. And after Irma, millions were without power.
“It’s not surprising that Hurricane Irma had a negative impact on existing home and condominium sales across most local markets in September,” said Maria Wells, president of the Florida Realtors and a broker in Stuart. “That’s a normal occurrence after a hurricane.”
Palm Beach County continued to show strong gains in construction, a sector that added 2,700 jobs during the past year. Work has begun at the new city of Westlake, marking a return to the large-scale homebuilding that was dormant after the housing crash. And construction workers have been
‘Obviously, our jobs numbers were affected because of this.’ Gov. Rick Scott On Hurricane Irma
building apartment complexes, the parking garage at the Palm Beach County Convention Center, Brightline’s railroad station, The Bristol condo tower in West Palm Beach and new bridges between West Palm Beach and Palm Beach.
Among other industries, the catch-all category of education and health services added 2,000 jobs. But the county’s leisure and hospitality sector took a hit from the hurricane, losing 1,400 jobs compared to a year ago.
“This has been mostly temporary, and we expect to it to rebound before the winter tourism season ramps up,” said Steve Craig, president of CareerSource Palm Beach County, the nonprofit job-placement organization.