Florida Overview

The recession hit the Florida job market hard, so the state is working to stimulate its local businesses, education partners and 9.3 million workers down the path of recovery. As a result, the state’s employment, overall economy and real estate market, which dominates the Sunshine State’s business activity, are slowly on the rise.

Florida Job Opportunities

With a diverse Hispanic population and a booming number of older residents who need services and healthcare, job opportunities in Florida are wide and growing. In addition, Florida’s real estate crisis left a large number of reasonably priced homes available for interested buyers.

The trade, transportation and utilities sector dominates employment in Florida. Other key industries include education/health services, professional/business services and government. With the exception of government, the top industries are also growing the fastest. Hardest hit from the real estate crunch, the construction sector has been in decline for more than five years, though declines have recently slowed.

Florida Employment Trends

Florida job conditions are slowly recovering. Online hiring is steadily improving, yet is still below prerecession levels. Florida payrolls declined from early 2008 through mid-2010 -- longer than in most other states -- and have increased slightly since then. After peaking at 11.4 percent in January and February 2010, the Florida unemployment rate was down to 8.6 percent in June 2012.

Moody’s Analytics forecasts a strong 2.5 percent increase in Florida jobs between Q2 2012 and Q2 2013, much higher than the 1.3 percent growth expected in the US job supply during that time.