February jobless rate drops over month and year

The unemployment rate in the tri-county region consisting of Marion, Citrus and Levy counties was 3.8% in February, down half a percentage point over the month and 2.2 percentage points lower than the region’s year-ago rate of 6.0%, according to a CareerSource Citrus Levy Marion (CLM) press release on March 25.

Across the region, the labor force totaled 206,767, up 939 over the year for an annual growth rate of 0.5%.

The number of jobs was 198,980, an increase of 5,416 compared to last year.

The number of unemployed was 7,787, down 1,100 from the previous month and 4,477 fewer than one year ago.

Rusty Skinner, CEO of CareerSource CLM, said the report shows that “our area continues to rebound, showing positive gains in the key labor force statistics over the past year.”

Skinner added that, as with other areas throughout the state and nation, “We continue to see that business demands for talent exceed or are not aligned with the talent seeking employment.”

Marion County had the 11^th highest unemployment rate in the State of Florida with 3.6%, up from 12^th in January of this year and 13^th in December of 2021.

Also with an unemployment rate of 3.6%, Ocala held the fifth highest unemployment rate amongst the state’s metro areas.

Marion County’s labor force contracted by 802 to 142,440; the number of those with jobs fell by 63 to 137,316, and the number of unemployed dropped by 739 to 5,124. By comparison, the same time last year, the jobless rate was 5.8%, the labor force grew by 632; the number of employed increased by 3,729, and the number of unemployed dropped 3,097.

Compared to all the metros across the state, the Ocala Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) continued to post the third fastest annual job growth rate in the information industry at 20.00%, growing faster in the metro area than statewide over the year. Information industry occupations include software developers, customer service representatives and telecommunications line installers and repairers.

The information sector comprises establishments engaged in the following processes: producing and distributing information and cultural products; providing the means to transmit or distribute these products, as well as data or communication; and processing data.

In addition to the information industry, which added 100 new jobs over the year, industries gaining jobs in the Ocala MSA were trade, transportation and utilities (+1,300 jobs for a 4.8% job growth rate); leisure and hospitality (+700 jobs, 5.7%); mining, logging and construction (+200 jobs, 2.2%); manufacturing (+100 jobs, growing at 1.0% over the year); financial activities (+100 jobs, 2.5%); and other services (+100 jobs, 3.4%).

Education and health services industries were unchanged over the year. Nonagricultural employment in the Ocala MSA, which covers all of Marion County, was 112,200 in February, an increase of 2,300 jobs over the year for a 2.1% annual growth rate.

Industries losing jobs compared to February 2021 were government (-200 jobs which posted a -1.3% growth rate) and professional and business services (-100 jobs, which grew at -0.9%).

Florida’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 3.3% in February 2022, down 0.2 percentage point from the January 2022 rate, and down 2.3 percentage points from a year ago. There were 348,000 jobless Floridians out of a labor force of 10,471,000, according the report released by the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO).

The Sunshine State’s non-seasonally adjusted jobless rate—a measure that matches the way local rates are calculated—was 3.1%, a 0.4 percentage point decrease over the month and 2.4% lower than February 2021. Unemployment rates fell in all of Florida’s 67 counties.

Adrienne Johnston, chief economist at the DEO, attributed a big chunk of the state’s employment conditions to people over the past 11 months becoming more optimistic about leaving jobs for better opportunities, with the overall growth of the labor force linked to people becoming more confident that work is available.

“If you go back and look at previous recessions, it was generally a longer-term recovery,” Johnston told reporters in a conference call. “So, to have come back in just two years from such a significant job less, means we were at a very significant rate of job gains.”

A separate report recently released by the DEO estimated the pace of new jobs declining from 5.7%, with 545,000 new positions, during the past year to 5.1% over the next two years.

“This is a slower rate than the growth we have seen over the past year, but it reflects the anticipated return to the stable levels of growth and labor market we experienced prior to the pandemic,” Johnston said.

The February and previous January jobs reports reflect annual benchmarking conducted by DEO and the US Department of Labor to align employment estimates, as well as revise historical data.

The monthly jobs report for March will be released on Friday, April 15.

“News Service of Florida” contributed to the writing of this report.