Florida unemployment

That's down from 3.2% in March. Gov. DeSantis said Florida picked up about 57,000 private-sector jobs last month.

Money for the program came from $1.4 billion allocated to Florida by the U.S. Department of the Treasury last year.

He warned that the Biden administration "plunges this country into a recession."

The report shows many people are leaving their jobs – confident they’ll find work somewhere else.

Workers are shifting away from gigs at hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues for higher-paying jobs in manufacturing, warehousing and logistics.

The unemployment rate in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area was 2.9%, while the statewide number is down to 3.3%

The rate fell to 4.4%, meaning 466,000 Floridians now qualify as jobless. Gov. DeSantis says it shows economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

If unchanged, the estimate for the week ending Dec. 25 would be the fewest number of claims for a single week since another holiday-shortened week in late December 2019.

State law puts the number of weeks at 12 when unemployment is at or below 5 percent.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a wide-ranging bill in Nobember that said refusing to comply with vaccination mandates isn’t considered “misconduct” for the purpose of receiving unemployment benefits.

A new forecast released earlier this month by the Institute for Economic Forecasting at the University of Central Florida also says housing starts in the state will pick up.

The October rate is 4.6%, down from 4.8% in September. The labor force grew by 29,000.