PENSACOLA, Fla. — Today, Governor Rick Scott announced that the Pensacola area added 3,700 new private-sector jobs in the last year. The area’s unemployment rate dropped to 4.0 percent, down 0.9 percentage point from a year ago. Statewide, Florida businesses created 22,100 new jobs in August and the unemployment rate dropped to 4.0 percent, the lowest rate since June 2007. Since December 2010, Florida businesses have created 1,441,000 new private-sector jobs.

The industries with the highest growth over the year in Pensacola were professional and business services with 1,300 new jobs; leisure and hospitality with 1,100 new jobs; and trade, transportation and utilities with 1,000 new jobs. The Pensacola area had 5,081 job openings in August, including 1,591 openings for high-skill, high-wage STEM occupations.

Florida’s annual job growth rate of 2.9 percent exceeds the nation’s rate of 1.7 percent, continuing the 65-month trend of our state’s rate being higher than the nation’s. In August, 23,936 Floridians were placed in jobs by CareerSource Escarosa and the state’s other 23 local workforce boards. 

To view the August 2017 employment data visit www.floridajobs.org/labor-market-information/labor-market-information-press-releases/monthly-press-releases.

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