Jobs Remain Scarce Across Sunshine State
TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami) — The state of Florida saw a fourth straight month of stagnant job growth in the month of August with the unemployment rate ticking down from 7.1 percent to 7.0 percent.
The 7 percent unemployment rate was the lowest since September 2008 when it was also 7 percent and it was 0.3 percent lower than the national average of 7.3 percent in August.
Statewide, the labor force shrank from July to August by 14,000 workers. Overall employment in the state also shrank by 4,000 jobs over the last month, but the unemployment number dropped by 10,000 over the last month.
It signals that many workers are simply dropping out of the workforce as jobs remain extremely hard to find in the Sunshine State.
For the last three months, the unemployment rate has been steady at 7.1 percent. Governor Rick Scott hopes the numbers will show major improvement soon as he makes a pitch for re-election next year.
Locally, especially in Miami-Dade County, jobs remain hard to come by.
According to the state numbers, the unemployment rate in Miami-Dade County stood at 8.4 percent, which was a 0.1 percent decline from July 2013.
The labor force shrank by 2,284 workers from July to August. In addition, 1,763 jobs vanished in the month of July. Finally, the unemployment level shrank by just 521 people in the last month.
In Broward County, the labor force shrank by 351 workers from July to August. However, 3,162 jobs were added in the county in July. All of that helped 3,514 people off unemployment insurance in July.
Overall, Broward County's unemployment dropped from 6.2 percent in July to 5.8 percent in August.
The problem many are finding is that the jobs that are being created under the Scott administration are low-paying jobs in fields like hospitality that can't support families like the jobs lost during the recession could.
Last month the state reported there were 666,000 people out of work in Florida. Florida's unemployment rate has been below the national average for several months.
