Tallahassee, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced the Jacksonville area added 10,800 new private-sector jobs in the past year. The area’s unemployment rate was 3.1 percent in December, down 0.3 percentage point in the past year. Statewide, Florida businesses created 241,000 new private-sector jobs in December 2018.

To see the statewide job creation information, click here.

The industries with the highest growth over the year in the Jacksonville area were education and health services with 3,200 new jobs and professional and business services with 3,100 new jobs. In December, Jacksonville was among the top five metro areas in the state for online job demand with 24,337 openings, of those, 7,320 were for high-skill, high-wage STEM jobs.

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.

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