Tampa Area Adds 42,000 Jobs In A Year: Gov. Scott

TAMPA, FL — There’s good news for the Tampa Bay area on the jobs front. According to Gov. Rick Scott’s office, the area has seen thousands of new jobs added over the past year while its unemployment rate fell to 4.1 percent as of March 2017.

“The Tampa area has more than 44,000 job openings, the highest in the state, which means more opportunities are available for Floridians to provide for their families and live their dreams,” Scott said in announcing job and employment figures for March on Friday. “Tampa businesses also created nearly 42,000 new jobs over the year, which is great news.”

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The Tampa area’s unemployment rate at 4.1 percent is a 0.4 percent decrease from a year ago, the governor's announcement said. The total number of new private-sector jobs added in the region over the past year is 41,800, according to the state.

Florida on the whole has seen 233,800 new jobs created over the past year, the governor’s office reported. That brings the total number of new jobs added since December 2010 up to 1,353,000, according to Scott’s office.

In the Tampa Bay area, professional and business services led the job-creation charge with 10,700 new jobs added, the state said. The construction industry also added 8,600 new jobs, followed by education and health services with 7,100 new jobs.

On the state level, 60,600 new jobs were created in the first quarter of 2017, Scott’s office reported. The overall unemployment rate for Florida was 4.8 percent in March. Florida’s annual job growth rate is 3.2 percent, which beats the national rate of 1.7 percent, Scott said.

More than 26,844 Floridians were placed in jobs by CareerSource Tampa Bay and the state’s 23 other regional workforce boards, officials added.

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