TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Today, the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity announced announced that the Tampa area added 34,900 new private-sector jobs in the last year, maintaining the second-highest number of jobs created among all Florida metro areas. The Tampa area unemployment rate was 3.1 percent in January, down 0.7 percentage point from one year ago.

The Tampa area lead all Florida metro areas in job gains in six different industries. The industries with the highest growth over the year were education and health services with 10,700 jobs and  professional and business services with 8,300 new jobs.

Statewide, Florida businesses created 31,500 new private-sector jobs in January 2020. Florida’s annual private-sector job growth rate of 2.1 percent continues to exceed the nation’s rate of 1.5 percent. Florida’s unemployment rate of 2.8 percent represents a drop of 0.6 percentage point over the year. This is while 179,000 people entered Florida’s labor force, a growth of 1.7 percent in the past year.

To view the January 2020 employment data, visit www.floridajobs.org/labor-market-information/labor-market-information-press-releases/monthly-press-releases.

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