Florida’s unemployment rate continued on its downward spiral in November, dropping to 5.8 percent.
According to a report released Friday from the Department of Economic Opportunity, November’s unemployment rate fell .2 percentage points from October’s rate of 6 percent.
Gov. Rick Scott took special pride in Friday’s report — job creation was his pitch during his 2010 and his 2014 election campaigns.
November’s numbers marked a milestone for the governor — Florida has created more than 715,000 private-sector jobs since December 2010 — a number which surpassed his goal of creating 700,000 in seven years.
“Today our goal was reached three years early, with 715,700 private-sector jobs created in Florida since December 2010,” said Scott. “I applaud our job creators across the state who sacrifice and work hard to create new jobs. Every job impacts a family and we will keep working each day to make Florida the world’s No. 1 destination for jobs.”
November’s rate is the lowest unemployment rate Florida has seen since May 2008 when it was 5.7 percent and now is the same as the national unemployment rate for November.
Florida added nearly 42,000 jobs over the month of November. Compared to November 2013, the state has added nearly 230,000 jobs, a solid increase of 3 percent.
When it came to the counties with the lowest unemployment rate, Monroe County registered the best result at 3.5 percent, followed by Walton County and Okaloosa County, which had unemployment rates of 3.8 percent and 4.4 percent respectively.
The county with the highest unemployment rate was Hendry County, with 9.7 percent, followed by Flagler County (8.1 percent) and Madison County (8 percent).
Reach Tampa-based reporter Allison Nielsen via email at allison@sunshinestatenews.com or follow her on Twitter: @AllisonNielsen
