Tallahassee, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced the West Palm Beach area added 2,600 new private-sector jobs in the past year. The area’s unemployment rate was 2.7 percent in December, down 0.5 percentage point from one year ago.

The industries with the highest growth over the year in the West Palm Beach area were government with 3,000 new jobs and financial activities with 2,100 new jobs.

Statewide, Florida businesses created 16,300 new private-sector jobs in December 2019. Florida’s annual private-sector job growth rate of 2.5 percent continues to exceed the nation’s rate of 1.5 percent. Florida’s unemployment rate of 3.0 percent represents a drop of 0.3 percentage point over the year. This is while 220,000 people entered Florida’s labor force, a growth of 2.1 percent in the past year.

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

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