Jacksonville’s unemployment remained steady in April at 4.4%, a year after COVID-19 pandemic-related shutdowns caused a huge spike in the jobless rate.
The unemployment rate in the Jacksonville metropolitan area of Duval, Baker, Clay, Nassau and St. Johns counties was unchanged from the 4.4% rate in March, the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity reported May 21.
The state agency does not adjust the Jacksonville data for seasonal factors but the University of North Florida’s Local Economic Indicators Project said when it is seasonally adjusted, it shows a slight decline from 4.51% in March to 4.45% last month.
“We continued to see people returning to the workforce in April,” said UNF economist Albert Loh.
“The good news is that we had almost the same size gain in jobs, suggesting strong demand for workers,” he said.
Conditions are much improved from a year ago, when the Jacksonville area’s unadjusted jobless rate jumped from 3.2% in February to 5.2% in March and then to 11.5% in April.
The rate remained high at 11% in May 2020 before it gradually started to drop as businesses reopened.
Nonfarm business in Northeast Florida brought back 71,000 jobs from April 2020 to April 2021, a 10.9% increase, the Department of Economic Opportunity said.
The biggest gains, not surprisingly, are in the leisure and hospitality industry, which has brought back 26,300 jobs in the past year, a 51.9% growth rate.
Businesses in the sector reported total jobs of 77,000 in April, still below but catching up to the prepandemic level of 86,100 in February 2020.
Total jobs at Jacksonville area businesses reached 720,300 in April 2021, compared with 732,000 in February 2020.
“While some sectors are still climbing back up from the deep hole the pandemic created, the local labor market has recovered considerably in the past 12 months,” Loh said.
Duval County’s unemployment rate was unchanged in April at 4.8%, without seasonal adjustment.
Loh said when it is seasonally adjusted, the county’s jobless rate had a slight uptick from 4.98% in March to 5.01% in April.
St. Johns County’s unadjusted unemployment rate fell by 0.1 percentage point to 3.4% in April, giving it the second-lowest rate in Florida behind Monroe County’s 3.2%.
Nassau County fell by 0.2 point to 3.8%, Baker County fell by 0.1 point to 4% and Clay County was unchanged at 4%.
Florida’s statewide seasonally adjusted unemployment rose by 0.1 point in April to 4.8%, the Department of Economic Opportunity said.