Tallahassee, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced that the Tampa area added 27,600 new private-sector jobs in the last year, creating the second-highest number of jobs among all Florida metro areas. Tampa’s unemployment rate was 3.4 percent, down 0.3 percentage point from one year ago. Statewide, Florida businesses created 24,300 new private-sector jobs in February 2019.

To see the statewide job creation information, click here.

The industries with the highest growth over the year in the Tampa area were professional and business services with 8,500 new jobs and financial activities with 5,000 new jobs.

The Tampa area remained first among the state metro areas in job demand in February with 58,143 openings. The Tampa area also continues to rank first in the state in demand for high-skill, high-wage STEM occupations with 19,235 openings in February 2019.

Florida’s annual private-sector job growth rate of 2.7 percent continues to exceed the nation’s rate of 1.9 percent. Florida’s unemployment rate of 3.5 percent represents a drop of 0.4 percentage point over the year. This is while 170,000 people entered Florida’s labor force, a growth of 1.7 percent in the past year.

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

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