Jobless rate soars in Palm Beach, Broward counties

By David Sedore, Palm Beach Business.com

DELRAY BEACH — The jobless rate for Palm Beach County shot up in January, while increasing at a lesser rate statewide, according to Florida’s Agency for Workforce Innovation.

The January report, released Wednesday, put Palm Beach County’s jobless rate at 12.5 percent, up from 11.7 percent in December and 9.0 percent in January 2009. The rate translates to 76,461 county residents out of work, about 4,000 more than in December and 21,000 more than a year ago.

Add in those who have given up searching for work because they can’t find it — they’re not included in the jobless stat — plus those working part-time because they can’t find a full-time job and the rate would soar above 20 percent.

Statewide, the jobless rate jumped to 11.9 percent, or 1.1 million workers, from 11.7 percent in December. A year ago, the rate sat at 8.7 percent.

chart of jobless rate for january

Florida has lost nearly 1 million jobs since April 2007, and that number is likely to rise before it begins to ebb some time in the second quarter, according to the latest forecast from the Economic Estimating Conference, a gathering of economists from the Legislature and the governor’s office. Florida is expected to add jobs during the second quarter, but the unemployment rate won’t peak until the third quarter — at 12.3 percent, the highest since the Great Depression.

The state’s economists don’t see the jobless rate dropping to 6 percent until 2018. Even at 6 percent, the rate would be nearly twice the unemployment Florida experienced at the peak of the last economic boom.

Rebecca Rust cited the three C’s as the reasons for the slow recovery.

“It’s consumption, credit, or the lack of credit, and the lack of confidence by both businesses and consumers,” Rust said.

In other words, consumers aren’t buying because they are either have lost jobs or fear losing jobs; businesses can’t get credit needed to expand if they see opportunity to do so; and businesses don’t have enough confidence in the recovery to start hiring again.

As has been the case for about the past year, all industry sectors lost jobs with the exception of private education and health care. Construction lost the most jobs — 90,700, or 20 percent of the sector’s work force — during the 12 months through January; private education and health care added 23,600. One difference: in previous months, all the growth came on the health care side of the sector, with private education declining; Rust said private education added 4,100 jobs in January.

Also in the report: Broward’s January jobless rate surged to 10.8 percent from 10.2 percent in December and 7.6 percent a year earlier.

In Miami-Dade, the jobless rate fell to 10.9 percent from 11.5 percent in December. A year ago, the rate sat at 8.7 percent.

February’s jobless report is due out March 26.

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