TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Brevard County’s unemployment rate dropped to 6.1% in February 2015 from 7.5% in February 2014, mostly due to a sharply shrinking labor force over the last three years combined with a slight increase in jobs over the last year. However, the unemployment rate on Florida’s Space Coast remains significantly higher than that of the statewide unemployment rate of 5.6%.
In February 2015, total non-agricultural employment in the Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville metro area was 201,800. Total non-agricultural employment increased by 6,200 jobs (3.2%) over the year. Statewide employment increased by 3.6% over the same time period. Out of a labor force of 257,461, there were 15,807 unemployed Brevard County residents in February.
Job gains on the Space Coast were led by professional and business services (+2,000 jobs); education and health services (+1,500 jobs); leisure and hospitality (+1,300 jobs). Other industries that gained jobs over the year included mining, logging, and construction (+900 jobs); manufacturing (+300 jobs); trade, transportation, and utilities (+200 jobs) and information (+100 jobs). Government (-700 jobs) was the only industries to lose jobs in the region over the year.
Statewide, Florida’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 5.6% in February 2015, just slightly higher than the national average of 5.6%, according to figures released by the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.
The February state unemployment rate was down 0.1 percentage point from the January rate of 5.6% and was .9 percentage point lower than the year‐ago rate of 6.5%. There were 548,000 jobless Floridians out of a labor force of 9,702,000.
Florida’s seasonally adjusted total non-agricultural employment was 7,990,200 in February 2015, an increase of 19,700 jobs (+0.2%) over the month. The number of jobs in the state was up 266,600 from February 2014, an increase of 3.5%.
All numbers released are known as U-3, which consists of total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force
