Tallahassee, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced that the Tampa area added 27,300 new private-sector jobs in the last year, creating the third-highest number of jobs among all Florida metro areas. The Tampa area’s unemployment rate was 2.9 percent in September, down 0.3 percentage point from one year ago.

The industry with the highest growth over the year in the Tampa area was professional and business services with 8,100 new jobs.

The Tampa area remained first among the state metro areas in job demand in September with 56,423 openings. The Tampa area also continues to rank first in the state in demand for high-skill, high-wage STEM occupations with 18,164 openings in September 2019.

Statewide, Florida businesses created 8,700 new private-sector jobs in September 2019. Florida’s annual private-sector job growth rate of 2.8 percent continues to exceed the nation’s rate of 1.6 percent. Florida’s unemployment rate of 3.2 percent represents a drop of 0.1 percentage point over the year. This is while 154,000 people entered Florida’s labor force, a growth of 1.5 percent in the past year.

To view the September 2019 employment data, visit www.floridajobs.org/labor-market-information/labor-market-information-press-releases/monthly-press-releases.

###