Florida Government Office of Rick Scott 45th Governor of Florida
St. Petersburg, Fla. (July 20, 2018) — Today, Governor Rick Scott announced that the Tampa-St. Petersburg area added 30,500 new private-sector jobs in the last year, creating the second-highest number of jobs among all Florida metro areas. Tampa’s unemployment rate was a low 3.8 percent, down 0.3 percentage point from one year ago. Statewide, Florida businesses created 16,900 new jobs in June bringing the total number of new private-sector jobs created in Florida to 1,554,800 since December 2010.
The industries with the highest growth over the year in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area were leisure and hospitality with 8,300 new jobs, and education and health services with 7,900 new jobs.
The Tampa-St. Petersburg area remained first among the state metro areas in job demand in June with 42,168 openings. The area also continues to rank first in the state in demand for high-skill, high-wage STEM occupations with 14,556 openings in June.
As of June, Florida’s unemployment rate remained at a low of 3.8 percent, a drop of 7.0 percentage points since December 2010; this drop is faster than the national decline of 5.3 percentage points. In the past year, 130,000 people entered Florida’s labor force, a growth of 1.3 percent, which is greater than the national labor force growth rate of 1.2 percent.
In another release, Governor Scott announced that Florida businesses have created 16,900 private-sector jobs in June and 172,600 in the past year, for a total of 1,554,800 jobs since December 2010. Florida’s annual job growth rate has outpaced the nation for 74 of the past 75 months.
Governor Scott said, “As Florida’s economy continues to create thousands of jobs every month, we proudly serve as a model for the nation on how to build business and secure continued economic growth and success. Our playbook of cutting taxes and eliminating thousands of burdensome regulations has created real momentum in Florida, allowing us to make historic Investments in things families care about – like education, safe neighborhoods and our environment. As our economy keeps booming and bringing thousands of families to Florida, the entire country is taking note.”
To view the June 2018 employment data visit www.floridajobs.org/labor-market-information/labor-market-information-press-releases/monthly-press-releases.
| CONTACT: GOVERNOR’S PRESS OFFICE (850) 717-9282 |
