Tallahassee, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced the West Palm Beach area had an increase of 19,300 new private-sector jobs in the past year. The area’s unemployment rate was 3.3 percent in December, down 0.2 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 industry with the highest growth over the year in the West Palm Beach area was leisure and hospitality with 5,500 new jobs. In December, the West Palm Beach area had 24,301 job openings and of those, 6,849 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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