Clay’s unemployment rate dropped in September

Florida’s Department of Economic Opportunity said the county’s unemployment rate fell another 0.2% in September, with 1,242 more people working in the county at the end of the month.

Over the past year, Clay’s unemployment rate has dropped from 3.1% to 2.3%, despite its labor force growing from 109,203 in September 2021 to 115,023 in September 2022. Over that same 12-month period, employers added 6,528 workers to their payrolls.

Florida’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 2.5% in September 2022, down 0.2 percentage points from the August 2022 rate and down 1.4 percentage points from a year ago. There were 266,000 jobless Floridians out of a labor force of 10,714,000. The U.S. unemployment rate was 3.5% in September.

The department said that Florida lost 1,282,500 jobs from February to April 2020 and has since gained back all jobs lost, adding more than 1,708,800 workers to payrolls.