Almost 24,000 Out Of Work In Area; Unemployment Rates Increases

December 19, 2009

The unemployment rate continues to rise in Escambia County, up nearly a full percentage point over last month. The number of jobless was also up in Santa Rosa County and across Florida. In Escambia County, Alabama, unemployment dropped slightly. There were 23,890 total persons out of work in the three counties.

unemployment.jpgIn Escambia County, unemployment data released Friday shows that  10.9 percent of the labor force was out of work in November. That’s 15,297 people, up from 10 percent, or 13,911 people in October.

There were 6,853 Santa Rosa County residents out of work last month.  Santa Rosa County’s unemployment rate was 9.9 percent in November, up from 9.4 percent in October.

Escambia County, Alabama, saw an improvement, with November’s 12.5 percent unemployment rate compared to 12.7 percent in October. That decrease represents 43 people that found work.

Florida’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for November 2009 is 11.5 percent. This represents 1,056,000 jobless out of a labor force of 9,202,000. The unemployment rate is up 0.2 percentage point from the revised October rate of 11.3 percent, and up 4.3 percentage points from the November 2008 rate. The state’s current unemployment rate is 1.5 percentage points higher than the national unemployment rate of 10.0 percent. November’s rate is the highest since May 1975 when it was 11.9 percent.

Industries losing the most jobs in Florida were construction; trade, transportation, and utilities; and professional and business services. These three industries account for more than two-thirds of the job losses in the state. Health care has been Florida’s only growth sector for most of 2009.

Alabama’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, at 10.5 percent in November, decreased from October’s rate of 10.9 percent but was above the year-ago rate of 6.2 percent.

Comments

5 Responses to “Almost 24,000 Out Of Work In Area; Unemployment Rates Increases”

  1. praying for all on December 23rd, 2009 11:00 pm

    Lot of the %’s are just ones who have drawn unemployment…does not count ones not allowed to.
    Yes many are out of work, and yes many employers would rather hire a ‘new’ under qualified person (but not just teens).
    Many employers look at it like this…hire/keep highly qualified person for bigger $$ or get rid of them/pass them over and higher a new person for min. wage…
    My prayers are that God will meet the needs of everyone in need for them and their family…not necessarily wants, but needs. We all need to be doing a lot more praying for things to work out and turn around for the positive for all.

  2. parent on December 20th, 2009 8:52 am

    Instigator, try cutting off your internet access. You may be able to pay some bills from that money. Also, I know for a fact that some high school kids NEED jobs just as much as your husband does. They have families that they help pay the bills for and some are paying for college so they don’t have to work dead-end jobs for the rest of their lives. So keep your nasty, negative comments about teenagers to yourself. It’s not their fault your husband has no job. Good luck to you.

  3. deBugger on December 19th, 2009 4:37 pm

    instigator,

    last week I was looking at all jobs [$7.25/hr & up] for Workforce Region 1 [panhandle] on the State Employ Florida website—

    on the first 3 pages of listings, over half of the positions offered were volunteer slots.

    Kinda dashes your optimism.

  4. bill on December 19th, 2009 9:55 am

    This doesn’t surprise me seeing past resistance to real blue collar manufacturing jobs from coming to this area. The service economy set up is always on shaky ground.
    We see the same problem nationally with most of our jobs being shipped overseas in the pursuit of corporate profit.
    While trying to stimulate the economy by building small business is good why doesn’t Congress work on stopping this job bleeding and President Obama work behind the scene to force those corporations to at least bring back some of those jobs or face some kind of reprisal ( force = reprisal ). Some serious issues must be dealt with for the long term health of this country.
    Or we can always Raise Taxes

  5. instigator on December 19th, 2009 9:27 am

    my husband cant get a job for 2 years. he’s told hes over qualified and they would rather give the job to a high school kid who lives at home so he can buy junk who they THINK will stay while my husband who NEEDS TO PAY THE MORTGAGE AND LIGHTS would be more than happy because there are no other jobs out there. if you read the pnj there are less than 25 jobs listed. there are thousands applying for each. most carreer builder jobs are scams