Tallahassee, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced the West Palm Beach area had an increase of 10,400 new private-sector jobs in the past year. The area’s unemployment rate was 3.4 percent in February, down 0.3 percentage point in the past year. Statewide, Florida businesses created 24,300 new private-sector jobs in February 2019.

To see the statewide job creation information, click here.

The industry with the highest growth over the year in the West Palm Beach area was professional and business services with 4,400 new jobs.

In February, the West Palm Beach area had 26,433 job openings and of those, 7,380 were for high-skill, high-wage STEM jobs.

Florida’s annual private-sector job growth rate of 2.7 percent continues to exceed the nation’s rate of 1.9 percent. Florida’s unemployment rate of 3.5 percent represents a drop of 0.4 percentage point over the year. This is while 170,000 people entered Florida’s labor force, a growth of 1.7 percent in the past year.

To view the February 2019 employment data, visit www.floridajobs.org/labor-market-information/labor-market-information-press-releases/monthly-press-releases.

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