Governor Scott just arrived in Brazil and he is excited to start off my trade mission with great news. Today we learned that Florida’s unemployment rate for September is 10.6 percent, down 1.3 percentage points since Governor Scott took office. This puts our unemployment rates over the last five months at the lowest in two years while the national unemployment rate has gone up point-one percentage point during the same time period.
Governor Scott is even more pleased by our job creation numbers. Florida has gained 110,300 private sector jobs while shrinking the size of government. That’s a net gain of 23,300 jobs in September alone, and a total net gain of 92,400 jobs since January.
Perhaps most significantly, Florida’s 12-month job growth percentage rate has (+1.3 percent) outpaced the nation (+1.1 percent) for the first time in three and a half years (since February 2007).*
Florida is trending in the right direction, but we know that with many Floridians still out of work there is still a long road ahead and we could face tougher times before our actions to turn the state around begin to have a lasting impact.
This month Governor Scott unveiled his job creation and economic growth agenda for the coming year. The Governor will continue to prioritize efforts to streamline regulations, provide tax relief, and work with the legislature and our other state leaders to do what it takes to create the jobs needed to get Floridians back to work.
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