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Gov. Rick Scott Talks Job Growth In South Florida

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MIAMI (CBSMiami) - Governor Rick Scott is in South Florida Friday announcing that job growth across Florida is back to pre-recession numbers.

Governor Scott was at the grand opening of Kellstrom Defense Aerospace, Inc., a manufacturer of aviation products that is expanding to create 20 new jobs, in addition to retaining 106 jobs, in Miramar.

"It's a great day for our state because people need jobs," Governor Scott said.

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The re-elected governor, who ran on a job creation platform, said he's keeping his promise.

New employment numbers show that in March, 29,400 jobs were created across the state. Since the governor took office, 841,000 people got hired.

The state has officially gained back every single private sector job lost during the recession.

"We have now erased the job losses of the previous years before Governor Scott took office and it's because of the leadership and policy of Governor Scott," said Lt. Governor Carlos Lopez-Cantera.

Kellstrom Defense Aerospace's new location, Scott said, serves as an example of what's happening in Florida.

"The employment rate in Florida is down to 5.7 percent it's down to 5.1 percent right here in the FLL area. And they added about 29,000 jobs in last 12 months. Miami-Dade has also done very well one of the fastest job growth rates in the state," Scott said.

Jesse Panuccio, the Executive Director of the Department of Economic Opportunity, said, "It's businesses like these that are driving Florida economic growth."

Kellstrom has invested $6 million in the company which has 106 employees. With the expansion and brand new state of the art facility, the CEO Chris Celtruda said they're adding 20 more.

"It's been an easy decision to make to expand and grow our presence in South Florida. Both the state county and city have gone above and beyond to support our ability to move into this wonderful new facility. We've invested $6 million, we have over 100 employees going to add 20 more think we have a strong future in South Florida," said Celtruda.

Governor Scott said Florida is a state where one can get a job.

"We have great workforce boards we have the programs, we have the training programs to make sure that companies, like Kellstrom, want to be here because they know that they can get great employees and you want to live here because you can get a great job."

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