Florida’s unemployment rate held steady for the five months, but in October there was a slight uptick.
From May to September of this year the unemployment rate has been 4.7 percent—the lowest mark since November 2007. Last month the state added 9,000 private sector jobs but the number of people looking for work grew even more. State jobs czar Cissy Proctor.
“So right now in October, our unemployment rate is 4.8 percent,” Florida Department of Economic Opportunity Director Cissy Proctor says. “so it ticked up .1 from last month.”
Proctor says that’s at least partially due to more people looking for work.
“When that number grows, it sometimes does affect the unemployment rate by bringing it up because there are more people looking for jobs and they may not be employed yet,” Proctor says. “And so we want people that are confident in their ability to find work and when they go out and look for jobs then that’s a good thing.”
In October, the labor force grew by more than 60,000 people, but the figures could have been hurt by losses in the public sector, as well. State reporting shows a loss of more than 3,000 local government positions.
