Sunshine Sentinel

Florida's continuing rebound from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic has been steadily fueled by an eight-week decline in COVID-19 cases.

Thanks to decreasing infection numbers across the state, Florida's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased by 0.1% from August to September, settling at 4.9%, while also being down by 2.3% from September 2020, according to a report from the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. 

"The Florida economy has kicked into overdrive," Christina Pushaw, press secretary for Gov. Ron DeSantis., told Sunshine Sentinel. "This is in no small part due to Gov. DeSantis ending the $300 weekly unemployment bonus months ahead of schedule, as the bonus accounted for more than half of Florida’s unemployment spending in late May. As the bonus ended, Floridians quickly began searching for work, creating an economic climate where small businesses could fill open positions and create more jobs.”

On a more specific level, Florida's seasonally adjusted nonagricultural jobs increased 84,500 from August to September and 405,900 over the course of a year, from September 2020. In total the state has regained more than 80% of the jobs lost during the height of the pandemic, from February to April of 2020, according to the report. 

"While the entire nation gained 194,000 jobs in September, Florida gained 84,500 jobs in the same month; we are outpacing the nation in job growth and job opportunities because businesses know that Florida will stand up for them,” said DeSantis in an announcement Friday, according to News Channel 8. “Despite tremendous national headwinds and economic uncertainty, Florida has reached a level of job growth only seen on four other occasions in the past 30 years. We will continue to work hard to keep Florida open, free and built for opportunity.”

The workforce in the state has been increasing due in part to the COVID-19 cases decreasing steadily for the eight consecutive weeks, according to CBS 12.