WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Today, Governor Rick Scott announced that Florida businesses have created more than 1.5 million jobs since December 2010. The West Palm Beach area added 5,100 new private-sector jobs in the last year. The area’s unemployment rate was a low 3.6 percent in March, down 0.4 percentage points in the past year. Statewide, Florida businesses created 12,500 new jobs in March.

Governor Scott said, “Florida continues to outpace the nation in job creation and West Palm Beach is an integral part of that success. By cutting taxes and removing burdensome regulations, Florida has seen significant growth in our economy since December 2010, including 1.5 million new jobs.”

The industries with the highest growth over the year in West Palm Beach were construction with 2,700 new jobs and leisure and hospitality with 2,500 new jobs. In March, the West Palm Beach area had 17,442 job openings and of those, 4,523 were for high-skill, high-wage STEM jobs.

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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