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Florida's jobless rate nudges up, but still historically low

 
Florida’s unemployment rate is up at 3.5 percent in February from January’s 3.4 percent, according to state figures Friday. Pictured is a job fair in St. Petersburg in 218. [CHERIE DIEZ   |   Times (2018)]
Florida’s unemployment rate is up at 3.5 percent in February from January’s 3.4 percent, according to state figures Friday. Pictured is a job fair in St. Petersburg in 218. [CHERIE DIEZ | Times (2018)]
Published March 22, 2019

Florida's unemployment rate remains historically low, but it nudged upward in February while the Sunshine State continued to outperform the nation.

The state's jobless rate creeped up to 3.5 percent for the month, up from 3.4 percent a month earlier, according to figures released on Friday. The national unemployment rate was 3.8 percent.

It was the second increase in the Florida unemployment rate in the past year after nearly a decade of continued improvement. But don't put too stuck in such a small increase, said Scott Brown, economist at Raymond James Financial.

"You don't want to put too much weight on one particular month," Brown said. "And 3.5 percent is pretty darn low."

Locally, unemployment saw general improvement. Tampa Bay's jobless rate fell half a point to 3.4 percent in February, from 3.9 percent in January.

Hillsborough County's jobless rate for February dropped to 3.3 percent from 3.8 percent the previous month, Hernando County's rate dipped to 4.6 percent from 5.2 percent, Pinellas County's rate fell to 3.3 percent from 3.7 percent and Pasco County's rate was cut to 3.8 percent from 4.3 percent.

Where the numbers get a little stranger is in job gains.

Florida added 211,900 jobs over the year — up 2.4 percent — and 25,200 of those jobs were added in February. While that's a decent gain for the month, said University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith, it's significant when compared to the national job gains for February — just 20,000, including Florida.

"If it wasn't for Florida, the nation would have lost 5,000 jobs in February," he said.

He suspects that the government shutdown may have inadvertently created an error in the numbers. During the shutdown, the agencies that handle data collection were furloughed, raising the possibility that there could have been a mistake in recording or inputting the data, Snaith said.

"It just opens the door for the possibility for higher error," he said.

The sectors with the largest over-the-year jobs gains were professional and business services (50,600 jobs), education and health services (40,700 jobs) and trade, transportation and utilities (32,000 jobs).

Information, which includes news media, was the only sector to lose jobs between February 2018 and February 2019 — 700 positions.

The bay area added 26,200 jobs over the year, just less than a 2 percent increase.

Contact Malena Carollo at mcarollo@tampabay.com or (727) 892-2249. Follow @malenacarollo.