Today Governor Rick Scott announced the Pensacola area added 1,300 new private-sector jobs over the year in April. The area’s unemployment rate declined by 0.5 percentage point over the year to 4.5 percent.
Governor Scott said, “Like the rest of our state, the Pensacola area continues to see economic growth with 1,300 new jobs added over the year. While today’s announcement is great news for Northwest Florida, we will keep working to create more opportunities across Florida so everyone who wants a job can find one.”
The industry with the greatest job growth in the Pensacola area over the year was education and health services with 500 new jobs. The Pensacola area had 5,039 job openings in April, with 1,253 openings for high-wage, high-skill, science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) occupations.
Since December 2010, 1,094,800 private-sector jobs have been created in Florida. Florida’s unemployment rate dropped to 4.8 percent in April, the state’s lowest in more than eight years. Florida businesses created 244,300 private-sector jobs over the year in April, exceeding the nation’s private-sector job growth rate for 49 consecutive months. Also, 35,386 Floridians were placed in jobs by CareerSource Escarosa and the state’s other 23 regional workforce boards.