New Jobless Claims In Florida Under 6,000

TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/NSF) - An estimated 5,654 new unemployment claims were filed in Florida during the week that ended Nov. 13, down from a revised count of 6,217 the prior week, according to a report issued Thursday by the U.S. Department of Labor.

The federal agency initially estimated 5,818 claims had been filed during the week ending Nov. 6. Nationally, an estimated 268,000 jobless claims were filed during the week that ended Nov. 13, down 1,000 from the prior week.

Over the past four weeks, Florida has averaged 6,790 new claims a week, which remains on par with the weekly average since mid-May, when state officials upped efforts to push people back into the workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Friday, the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity will update Florida's overall unemployment figures, which as of mid-September stood at 4.9 percent.

The September mark represented an estimated 517,000 Floridians out of work from a labor force of 10.59 million.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Labor announced the national unemployment rate had dropped by 0.2 percentage points to 4.6 percent.

The numbers were seen as a rebound for the labor market after a summer surge of COVID-19 cases linked to the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus.