Unemployment Rate Jumps; 6,000 More Out Of Work In Escambia Over Last Year

July 18, 2009

Escambia County’s unemployment rate has jumped to 10 percent, with nearly 6,000 more people out of work in June 2009 than June 2008.

Not since October 1975, when unemployment reached 11 percent, has the jobless rate exceeded last month’s tally, released Friday by the Agency for Workforce Innovation. The June figure also reflected a 0.3 percentage point increase from May.

The continued increase in the percentage of people seeking jobs is bad news for economy watchers who are looking for at least a leveling off as a sign of an improving overall economy. Some economists have projected that it will continue upward for at least a couple more months, and for more hopeful forecasters looking for an end to the increases, Friday’s news was disappointing.

In Escambia County, the 10 percent June unemployment rate represented 14,127 people out of work, up from 9.5 percent in May. One year ago, Escambia’s unemployment rate was 5.9 percent, or 8,301 people.

In Santa Rosa County, the unemployment rate for June was 9.6 percent, or 6,713 jobless. That is up from 8.6 percent, of 5,953 unemployed in May.

Florida’s June rate was 4.6 percentage points higher than the June 2008 rate and 1.1 percentage points higher than the national unemployment rate for June of 9.5 percent.

Fort Walton Beach had the state’s lowest unemployment rate at 7.1 percent while Palm Coast – in an area where employment had been boosted heavily by the building boom, now just a memory – captured the highest jobless spot with 15.5 percent.

Losses in the construction industry, which led the current unemployment trend, have slowed somewhat and are now being eclipsed by losses in professional services and trade. Tourism and leisure employment is also down, especially in restaurants and bars.

“All major industries except private education and health care services have lost jobs,” said Rebecca Rust, AWI economist.

Florida was among 15 states to post jobless rates in excess of 10 percent, the U.S. Labor Department reported earlier this month. Over the month, jobless rates increased in 38 states.

The national jobless rate rose for the ninth straight month in June, when it hit another 26-year high. Nearly 3.4 million jobs have been lost during the first half of 2009, more than the 3.1 million lost in all of 2008.

Still Florida’s 10.6 percent rate placed it fifth in the nation, well behind Michigan, which is staggered by having 15.2 percent of its working population unemployed.

Meanwhile, state economists said Friday the housing market won’t recover for the foreseeable future as residential housing starts – while up a bit – are not expected to really pick up until the second quarter of 2010.

Coupled with continued tight credit and sluggish consumer spending, fears are that employment growth won’t come this year.

Three out of four state estimates show unemployment not dipping below 10 percent until the second quarter of 2011.

Comments

One Response to “Unemployment Rate Jumps; 6,000 More Out Of Work In Escambia Over Last Year”

  1. Piet Russer on July 20th, 2009 2:41 pm

    there is nice interactive unemployment level heat map for metro Pensacola available at http://www.localetrends.com/metro/pensacola_florida_home.php?MAP_TYPE=curr_ue

    You can view the current unemployment rate for Metro Pensacola counties and towns as well as compare the current rates to last month, 6 months ago and a year ago.

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News