MIAMI, Fla. — Governor Rick Scott announced that the Miami area added 32,600 new private-sector jobs in the last year, the second-highest number of jobs among all Florida metro areas. The unemployment rate in Miami was 4.5 percent in December, down 0.9 percentage point from a year ago. Statewide, Florida businesses created nearly 30,000 new jobs in December bringing the total number of new private-sector jobs created in Florida to 1,497,100 since December 2010.
Governor Scott said, “Like the rest of the state, Miami businesses experienced a great year of growth in 2017 with more than 32,000 new jobs added over the year. We will continue to work during the legislative session to cut taxes and make it even easier for job creators to invest in our state.”
The industries with the highest growth over the year in Miami were trade, transportation and utilities with 11,100 new jobs and education and health services with 6,700 new jobs. The area continued to rank third among the state’s metro areas with 28,451 openings, and once again offered the third-highest number of high-skill, high-wage STEM jobs with 6,725 openings.
As of December, Florida’s unemployment rate is at 3.7 percent, a drop of 7.0 percentage points since December 2010, faster than the national decline of 5.2 percentage points. In the last year, 185,000 people entered Florida’s labor force, a growth of 1.9 percent, which is nearly four times the national labor force growth rate of only 0.5 percent.
In December, 18,828 Floridians were placed in jobs by CareerSource South Florida and the state’s other 23 local workforce boards.
To view the December 2017 employment data visit www.floridajobs.org/labor-market-information/labor-market-information-press-releases/monthly-press-releases.