As the number of vaccinated Floridians continues to rise and businesses opening back up to pre-pandemic levels of operation, the number of unemployment claims for first-time applicants has continued to trend down based off the numbers given by the Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL).
There were approximately 14,872 initial unemployment claims in Florida for the week that ended May 8th, a 4,893 decrease in the number of initial claims that were recorded during the prior week, and a 13,145 decrease from the week before that.
Compared to California and Texas, two states with similar populations, Florida is leading the charge in getting people back to work. For the week that ended May 8th, California recorded 70,442 initial claims with a decrease of only 324 from the prior week; and Texas recorded 30,538 initial claims which is actually an increase of 313 from the prior week.
The last reported data regarding Florida’s unemployment rate from the DEO is from March 2021 and shows a rate of 4.7% which is lower than the national unemployment rate of 6.1% as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while California and Texas have unemployment rates of 8.3% and 6.9% respectively.
The decrease in unemployment claims in Florida may be attributed to the work search waiver that expires on May 29th that currently makes it easier to attain unemployment benefits. The peak amount of initial claims reached 506,670 and was recorded a month after DeSantis issued the work search waiver.
With the work search waiver deadline is two weeks away, the DEO recently announced on Twitter the launch of the Return to Work Initiative stating that they “encourage all claimants to begin searching for work prior to work search requirement expiration date.”
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Casey Owens is a writer at The Florida Capital Star. Follow him on Twitter at @cowensreports. Email tips to [email protected].Â
