The Orlando area lead the state in the number of new jobs created in the last year. The area gained a little more than 47,000 jobs.
That brought the area’s unemployment rate down to 4.9 percent for April, the first time it’s hit below 5 percent in seven years.
Executive Director of the Department of Economic Opportunity Jessie Panuccio said the job growth spread across all sectors. “And the most growth was in professional and business services with almost 11,000 new jobs,” said Panuccio. “And that’s important because those are good middle class jobs, they have an average annual wage that is higher than say your typical tourism job, and they tend to be higher skilled jobs as well.”
Overall businesses have added nearly 870,000 jobs in Florida since December 2010.
The state had a 5.6 percent unemployment rate for April.