JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Today, Governor Rick Scott announced that Florida businesses have created more than 1.5 million jobs since December 2010. The Jacksonville area added 21,200 new private-sector jobs in the past year, creating the third-highest number of jobs among all Florida metro areas. Jacksonville’s unemployment rate was a low 3.5 percent in March, down 0.5 percentage points from a year ago. Statewide, Florida businesses created 12,500 new jobs in March.

Governor Scott said, “With more than 21,000 new jobs, families in Jacksonville should have confidence that Florida is the best state in the nation to succeed and raise a family. Over the past seven years, Florida has demonstrated that cutting taxes and eliminating burdensome regulations creates jobs and opportunities for businesses to grow and succeed.”

The industries with the highest growth over the year in Jacksonville were leisure and hospitality with 4,500 jobs and trade, transportation, and utilities with 4,100 jobs. The Jacksonville area once again rounded out the top five metro areas in job demand, with 19,971 openings, and had the fifth-highest number of openings for high-skill, high-wage STEM occupations with 5,365 online openings.

As of March, Florida’s unemployment rate is at 3.9 percent, a drop of 6.9 percentage points since December 2010; this drop is faster than the national decline of 5.2 percentage points. In the last year, 132,000 people entered Florida’s labor force, a growth of 1.3 percent, which is greater than the national labor force growth rate of 1.0 percent.

To view the March 2018 employment data, visit www.floridajobs.org/labor-market-information/labor-market-information-press-releases/monthly-press-releases.

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