Gov. Scott: Jacksonville Area Added More Than 16,000 Jobs Over the Year

Today, Governor Rick Scott announced the Jacksonville area gained 16,600 new private sector jobs over the year in December. The Jacksonville area's unemployment rate declined by 0.8 percentage point over the year to 4.5 percent in December. Florida has added more than 1 million private sector jobs since 2010.

Governor Scott said, "Jacksonville, like the rest of our state, continues to grow. With over 16,000 new jobs added over the year in the Jacksonville area, more and more families are finding great jobs. We must continue to cut $1 billion in taxes and attract more businesses to grow and relocate to Florida so we can continue this momentum."

The industries with the largest job gains over the year in the Jacksonville area were leisure and hospitality with 5,500 new jobs; education and health services with 4,800 new jobs; and trade, transportation, and utilities with 3,800 new jobs. In December, the Jacksonville area had 18,907 job openings and had 4,496 openings for high-wage, high-skill science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) jobs.

Florida created 21,000 private-sector jobs in December, and a total of 1,025,400 private-sector jobs since December 2010. Florida's statewide unemployment rate for December was 5.0 percent. In December, more than 37,932 Floridians were placed in jobs by CareerSource Northeast Florida and the state's other 23 regional workforce boards.

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