Published: Saturday, Oct. 17, 2009

Updated: Saturday, Oct. 17, 2009

Manatee jobless hits record 12.7 percent

State’s rate rises to 11 percent

MANATEE — Manatee County’s job outlook continued to worsen last month, according to state labor figures released Friday.

The county’s unemployment rate set another modern-day record high in September, hitting 12.7 percent, the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation said. That’s up from the previous record of 12.4 percent, set in August.

Some 18,132 Manatee residents were jobless last month. In September of 2008, when the unemployment rate was 7.8 percent, there were 11,530 people unemployed.

“It shows the magnitude of how hard this area has been hit,” said Sally Hill, spokeswoman for the Suncoast Workforce Board.

Manatee has especially been hit hard by job losses in the professional and business services sector, which includes professional employer organizations, she said. That sector has 8,100 fewer jobs, or 17.7 percent, in Manatee and Sarasota counties than a year ago.

The local construction industry, hammered by the housing slump, has lost 3,400 jobs to shed more than 16 percent of its workforce.

The only sector adding jobs is health care, but not many: 200 in the two counties, the workforce board said.

But that’s encouraging enough that two-thirds of those enrolled in a federally funded workforce training program operated through the local board are in health-care fields, Hill said.

Sarasota County’s unemployment rate rose from 11.6 percent in August to 12.3 percent in September.

Florida’s unemployment rate rose to 11 percent, well above the U.S. rate of 9.8 percent as the number of jobless Floridians topped 1 million for the first time. It’s the state’s highest unemployment rate since October 1975, but well below the record of 11.9 percent set in May 1975.

Another 7.2 percent of Florida’s workforce has either given up looking for work or can find only part-time jobs, said Rebecca Rust, the state labor agency’s chief economist.

State legislative forecasters previously had expected unemployment to peak at 11 percent but not until the second quarter of 2010, as unemployment typically continues rising for up to a year after a recession has been declared over. Economists are predicting the current recession will end this year.

Now, it’s possible Florida’s jobless rate could peak at 12 percent, Rust said.

“We are expecting this to be a very slow recovery because of the housing inventory and the tight credit conditions,” she told reporters during a conference call.

The state has lost more than 360,000 jobs in the past year, primarily in construction, professional and business services, and trade, transportation and utilities.

Despite the growing numbers of Florida’s jobless, state labor officials said some positive signs are emerging.

The number of mass-layoff notices the state has received from employers has been steadily decreasing since March, and none were received in the first week of October — the first time that has happened in a year.

“The recovery is coming slowly, but it is coming,” said Cynthia R. Lorenzo, the workforce agency’s director. “The latest unemployment figures confirm that the economic downturn continues to impact a significant number of Floridians and businesses. However, a reduction in employers announcing closings or large-scale layoffs is a positive sign of Florida’s growing economic stability.”

Hill also noted a recent Conference Board report that showed Bradenton and Sarasota were among just five Florida cities to have an increase in online help-wanted ads.

But a University of Central Florida economist said high unemployment will keep the state and U.S. economies feeble, despite the Dow Jones Industrial Average recently hitting 10,000 points and a recent uptick in consumer spending.

“Dow 10,000 and the ‘Cash for Clunkers’ surge in spending might be giving us a false hope for a strong recovery,” said Sean Snaith, director of UCF’s Institute for Economic Competitiveness. “When the celebrations die down, the reality of continuing double-digital unemployment will set in, and things are going to slow down again.”