State unemployment rate dips to 3%, Central Florida 2.6%

TALLAHASSEE — Florida’s unemployment rate dropped to 3% in April, while Gov. Ron DeSantis continues to warn about high gasoline prices and a potential recession that he blames on federal economic policies.

The state Department of Economic Opportunity released a report Friday that showed the April unemployment rate was down from 3.2% in March.

The rate for Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford region was at 2.6%. The region has added the most jobs in the past year, up 103,000, according to the report.

The report also showed that over the past year the leisure and hospitality industry, which measures employment in the tourism industry and took the biggest hit from the pandemic, gained 152,300 jobs.

Last month, 321,000 people qualified as unemployed from a workforce of 10.54 million. The workforce grew by 309,000 people from April 2021 to last month.

The state lost 1.28 million jobs from February 2020 to April 2020, when businesses shuttered and cut back in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Florida has regained those jobs and added to them, with the total at nearly 1.5 million jobs, according to the department,

One sign of improved economic conditions for workers is that 404,000 Floridians in March quit jobs, 97,000 more than in February and 167,000 more than a year earlier, Adrienne Johnston, the department’s chief economist, said in a conference call with reporters.

“It’s not people moving out of the labor force. It’s not people who are discouraged. It’s people who are actually encouraged,” Johnston said. “They feel that there are opportunities to find other work and perhaps improve their career.”

During an appearance at Retro Fitness in West Palm Beach, DeSantis touched on the unemployment report, which indicated Florida picked up about 57,000 private-sector jobs last month.

“Employers in Florida have now 24 consecutive months where we’ve had private-sector job growth, and our private-sector growth has exceeded the nation’s for over a year,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis also continued to forecast increases in already-record gas prices amid summer travel and the potential for four-decade-high inflation to result in a recession. DeSantis said the state has large reserves that would help it ward off any initial hit from a national economic downturn.

“We’re happy that we’re doing it right in Florida,” DeSantis said. “We’re making the good decisions . ... But we’re mindful about the storms brewing on the horizon out of Washington, D.C., and we’re prepared from a budget perspective.”

The national unemployment rate was 3.6% last month.