Jobless rate continues to climb, likely to peak in '10

By David Sedore, Palm Beach Business.com Staff

DELRAY BEACH — The jobless rate in Palm Beach County hit 9.7 percent in February, an increase of a half percentage point over January’s number, Florida’s Agency for Workforce Innovation reported Friday.

Statewide, the rate hit 9.4 percent, the highest in Florida since April 1976. The national rate for February was 8.1 percent.

Factor in discouraged workers — those who are out of work but have given up looking for a job — and the unemployment rates likely would top 12 percent, estimated Rebecca Rust, the chief economist for the agency.  Discouraged workers are not included in the unemployment rate; they're tracked separately on a federal level, but not on the state or county.

Overall, the February numbers present little reason for optimism. Rust said state economists expect statewide unemployment to peak at 10.2 percent during the first quarter of 2010. Florida’s economy is expected to continue to contract through this year until the second quarter of 2010, when a recovery is expected to begin.

That recovery is expected to be slower than average, Rust said.

The one bit of good news; no one is forecasting a depression, either nationally or for Florida. And the statewide jobless rate isn’t likely to top the 12 percent recorded during the ’74-’75 recession.

The agency reported Palm Beach County’s jobless rate rose to 9.7 percent in February, compared to 9.2 percent in January and 5.0 percent in February 2008. Those numbers translate into 60,836 county residents out of work, up from 58,037 a month ago and 30,863 a year ago. Those numbers are not adjusted for seasonal factors.

The statewide rate hit 9.4 percent, up from the revised rate of 8.8 percent for January and 5.2 percent a year ago.  Florida lost 399,400 jobs through the 12 months ended February, a decline of 5.1 percent. That’s the worst rate since 1975.

South Florida lost 98,000 jobs, the largest number among the state’s metro areas, followed by Orlando, 57,000 and Tampa, 51,000.

Construction continued to have the biggest job losses of any sector tracked — down 115,000 jobs through the 12 months ended in February. Professional and business services was No. 2, with a decline of 102,000 jobs.

Rust said private education and health care continued to be the only sector gaining jobs, up 19,200 jobs.

Broward County’s jobless rate climbed to 8.3 percent from 7.8 percent in January and 4.1 percent a year earlier. Miami-Dade’s rate hit 7.5 percent, up from 6.9 percent in January and 4.7 percent a year earlier.