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Florida unemployment rate falls to 2.8% in June

By Ashley Edlund, WFTV.com
By Ashley Edlund, WFTV.com

ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida’s unemployment numbers for June show more people are getting jobs and more jobs are becoming available.

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Governor Ron DeSantis touted the findings in the latest report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday which show Florida’s unemployment rate of 2.8 percent for June falling below the national rate of 3.6 percent.

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According to the report, employment in the Orlando area specifically increased by 7.2 percent, or more than 82,000 new jobs over the year.

“It means there’s some really great jobs available,” Vice President of Service Delivery for CareerSource of Central Florida Nilda Blanco said. “The Orlando area’s labor force increased by 64,121 over the year in June of 2022. That number is really important.”

The report shows that the leisure and hospitality industries gained the most jobs over the year, increasing by 37,600 jobs.

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The June data also shows there are still plenty of job opportunities available throughout the state with more than 603.000 openings posted online.

However, on the ground at Lake Eola, World of Beer Manager Andrew Dawson says the promising numbers are masking a different problem.

“People don’t show up for interviews,” Dawson said. “I would say at least 75 percent never show.”

Dawson says he’s even paying three to five dollars more per hour than he was a year ago in an attempt to keep people on the job, but he’s still struggling to fill his staff.

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“25 percent of my labor is overtime,” Dawson said. “You’ll have someone who comes in and works one or two days and then they don’t want to work, and you’ll never see them again.”

The unemployment rate for the Orlando metro area alone was 3.2 percent in June, a decrease of 2.5 percent from the same time last year.

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