Tallahassee, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced that the Fort Lauderdale area added 15,400 new private-sector jobs in the past year. Fort Lauderdale’s unemployment rate dropped to a low 3.1 percent in December, down 0.3 percentage point from one year ago. Statewide, Florida businesses created 241,000 new private-sector jobs in December 2018.

To see the statewide job creation information, click here.

The industry with the highest growth over the year in the Fort Lauderdale area was trade, transportation and utilities with 3,900 new jobs.

Fort Lauderdale remains among the top four metro areas in online job demand in Florida with 28,819 openings in December. Also, the area had the fourth-highest number of openings for high-skill, high-wage STEM occupations with 7,381 job ads.

Florida’s unemployment rate of 3.3 percent represents a drop of 0.6 percentage point over the year. This is while 140,000 people entered Florida’s labor force, a growth of 1.4 percent in the past year. Florida’s annual job growth rate of 3.2 percent continues to exceed the nation’s rate of 2.0 percent.

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

###