TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Today, the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity announced the Pensacola area added 4,000 new private-sector jobs in the past year. The area’s unemployment rate was 3.2 percent in January, down 0.7 percentage point from one year ago.

The industry with the highest growth over the year in the Pensacola area was leisure and hospitality with 1,600 new jobs, this resulted in the fastest over-the-year growth rate among all Florida metro areas at 6.6 percent.

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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