JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Today, Governor Rick Scott announced that the Jacksonville area added 16,700 new private-sector jobs in the last year, creating the third-highest number of jobs among all Florida metro areas. Jacksonville’s unemployment rate was a low 3.2 percent in April, down 0.6 percentage point from one year ago. Statewide, Florida businesses created 8,300 new jobs in April bringing the total number of new private-sector jobs created in Florida to more than 1.5 million since December 2010.

The industry with the highest growth over the year in Jacksonville was professional and business services with 4,400 new jobs. The Jacksonville area once again rounded out the top five metro areas in job demand, with 20,310 openings, and had the fifth-highest number of openings for high-skill, high-wage STEM occupations with 5,277 online openings.

As of April, Florida’s unemployment rate remains low at 3.9 percent, a drop of 6.9 percentage points since December 2010; this drop is faster than the national decline of 5.4 percentage points. In the last year, 125,000 people entered Florida’s labor force, a growth of 1.2 percent, which is greater than the national labor force growth rate of only 0.8 percent.

To view the April 2018 employment data, visit www.floridajobs.org/labor-market-information/labor-market-information-press-releases/monthly-press-releases.

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