Record Setting Employment in Florida & Palm Beach County
Bottom Line: Good news never gets old, and we’ve received a double dose of it with Florida’s February employment report. While the national unemployment rate rose slightly, Florida’s unemployment rate remained static near historic lows with an exceptionally low 2.6% unemployment rate. Overall, the state added 34,000 private sector jobs in February with an unemployment rate of 2.6% compared to the 3.6% national average. That’s good news as the state has continued to outperform the national economy for 28 consecutive months. And while that’s impressive, what’s happened most recently is even more so.
A total of 406,600 jobs have been added in Florida over the past twelve months representing a 5% growth rate in private sector jobs in our state compared to a 1.5% growth rate nationally. 28 months of economic outperformance with greater than 3x the national rate over the past year? That’s an economic growth story that’s terrific and that’s only continuing to get better. In Palm Beach County our story has also been one of a rapidly improving economy.
The West Palm Beach metro, representing Palm Beach County, saw its unemployment rate fall to 2.6% over the past month, matching the statewide rate in the process after adding 14,789 jobs over the past year – with leisure and hospitality representing the fastest sector for job growth. Florida remains one of the top destinations for employment opportunity in the country, easily performing the best of any large state, and Palm Beach County remains one of the top destinations for opportunity not just in Florida, but the country overall.