Tallahassee, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced the Jacksonville area added 22,600 new private-sector jobs in the past year, creating the third-highest number of jobs among all Florida metro areas. The area’s unemployment rate was 2.6 percent in November, down 0.5 percentage point from one year ago.

The industry with the highest growth over the year in the Jacksonville area was professional and business services with 9,400 new jobs.

In November, Jacksonville was among the top five metro areas in the state for online job demand with 27,769 openings, of those, 8,987 were for high-skill, high-wage STEM jobs.

Statewide, Florida businesses created 10,300 new private-sector jobs in November 2019. Florida’s annual private-sector job growth rate of 2.6 percent continues to exceed the nation’s rate of 1.6 percent. Florida’s unemployment rate of 3.1 percent represents a drop of 0.2 percentage point over the year. This is while 200,000 people entered Florida’s labor force, a growth of 1.9 percent in the past year.

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

###