Today, Governor Rick Scott announced Jacksonville added 21,600 new private-sector jobs over the year in April. The area’s unemployment rate declined by 0.8 percentage point over the year to 4.3 percent.
Governor Scott said, “I am proud to announce today that Jacksonville added nearly 22,000 new jobs over the year. Every new job makes an important difference in someone’s life, and that is why we will continue to work toward making Florida a national leader for jobs.”
The industries with the greatest job gains over the year in the Jacksonville area were leisure and hospitality with 5,900 new jobs and education and health services with 4,900 new jobs. The Jacksonville area remained in the top five areas in the state for job demand, with 22,146 job openings. The area also ranked fifth for high-wage, science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) jobs with 5,953 online job openings in April.
Since December 2010, 1,094,800 private-sector jobs have been created in Florida. Florida’s unemployment rate dropped to 4.8 percent in April, the state’s lowest in more than eight years. Florida businesses created 244,300 private-sector jobs over the year in April, exceeding the nation’s private-sector job growth rate for 49 consecutive months. Also, 35,386 Floridians were placed in jobs by CareerSource Northeast Florida and the state’s other 23 regional workforce boards.
To view the April 2016 employment data visit
www.floridajobs.org/labor-market-information/labor-market-information-press-releases/monthly-press-releases.