TALLAHASSEE - Florida’s unemployment rate held steady in November, as businesses did not boost seasonal hiring as much as usual amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The state Department of Economic Opportunity on Friday posted a 6.4 percent jobless rate for November, equal to a revised jobless mark for October. The rate indicates 651,000 Floridians qualified as unemployed in mid-November, just 7,000 fewer than a month earlier.
The October mark had initially been estimated at 6.5 percent before being revised. The unemployment rate in November 2019, before the pandemic hammered the economy, was 2.8 percent.
Adrienne Johnston, the department’s chief of the Bureau of Labor Market Statistics, pointed to a failure of seasonal retail hiring to reach demand from past years.