Florida’s jobless rate ticked up for a seventh consecutive month, according to a Department of Commerce report released Friday.
The unemployment rate for March was 4.7 percent, reflecting an estimated 523,000 Floridians qualified as out-of-work from a labor force of 11.15 million.
There was a monthly increase of 7,000 unemployed workers, and a jump of 120,000 over the last 12 months.
Florida also shed 22,400 jobs over the last year, with only the education and health services and professional and business services sectors showing growth during that time.
State economists have pointed to new entrants to the job market needing more time to find work, as opposed to people losing their jobs as one of the culprits behind the rise in the jobless rate. They have also attributed a lack of growth in the labor force to an increase in people retiring.
The March report comes as the state received several layoff notifications in the past week that are set to take place this summer.
Peterson Brands advised the state Monday 135 workers will be let go as it closed its Fort Myers plant on July 27.
Also, a national restructuring and sale of assets by Republic National Distributing Company to Reyes Beverage Group will affect 1,046 workers in Florida and 2,774 nationally. The layoffs are set to begin around June 21.
“We are providing this notice to you at this time since there is no guarantee that Reyes will provide employees with an offer of employment as discussions remain ongoing, and it is not yet known who will be needed to continue employment with the Company,” states the Republican National’s “worker adjustment and retraining notification” letter to the state Department of Commerce dated April 22.
The layoffs are expected to affect 363 in Deerfield Beach, 169 in Jacksonville, 121 in Pensacola, and 393 employees in Tampa.
Another 420 workers at Bay Correctional in Panama City and Graceville Correctional in Graceville are listed as potential layoffs as the contract to run the facilities by Management & Training Corporation expires June 30, the end of the state’s fiscal year. The GEO Group will operate the facilities after that date and the letter to the state notes that “many of the staff may be retained.”
Still, the recent advisories don’t indicate an increase in layoffs.
Through the first four months of 2026, Florida has received 105 layoff notifications involving 6,011 positions. In the same period of 2025, there were 87 notifications involving 9,038 workers.
In the monthly jobs report from Commerce, the biggest decline in positions over the past year involves government jobs, with a loss of 12,300 federal positions and 1,600 state positions. Local government added 1,800 workers in the past year.
The state also saw a decrease of 11,500 jobs involving financial activities, 8,700 construction jobs, 7,900 involving trade, transportation, and utilities, 4,500 in manufacturing and 3,000 in the leisure and hospitality field.
Within leisure and hospitality, the decline is driven by a loss of 13,700 positions involving restaurant and hotel jobs.
Meanwhile, education and health services jobs grew by 31,500 over the past year, mostly involving health care and social assistance jobs, which grew by 25,700. Also, the state saw an increase of 9,300 positions involving professional and business services, which includes areas involving administrative and waste services.
The national unemployment rate currently stands at 4.3 percent. A year earlier, the U.S. rate was at 4.2 percent. At that time, Florida’s rate was 3.6 percent.
Florida's rate has grown in each monthly report released since August.
Among the state’s metropolitan regions, the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach area maintains the lowest unemployment rate at 3.7 percent, down from 3.8 percent in February. A year ago, the South Florida region had a 3.0 percent jobless rate.
Metro area rates are not seasonally adjusted, while the statewide mark was adjusted.
Next lowest was the tourism-dominated Orlando region at 4.4 percent, followed by the Naples and Tampa regions both at 4.5 percent, Panama City at 4.6 percent, and the regions including Melbourne, Sarasota, Tallahassee and Jacksonville each at 4.7 percent.
The Gainesville and Daytona Beach regions were at 5.1 percent and Lakeland was at 5.4 percent.
The highest rates continue to be for The Villages at 7.8 percent, Homosassa Springs at 6.5 percent and Sebring at 6.1 percent.
