Washington and Holmes County Unemployment Down

December’s unemployment rates were released recently and show a decline for both Washington and Holmes Counties.

Washington County’s unemployment rate for December 2011 is 10.4 percent, which is a .3 percent decline from November 2011, which was at 10.7 percent and a 2.2 percent decline from December 2010, which was at 12.6 percent.

Holmes County’s unemployment rate for December 2011 is 7.6, which is a .3 percent decline from November 2011, which was at 7.9 percent and a 1.3 percent decline from December 2010, which was 8.9 percent.

Florida unemployment rate drops below 10 percent

The Associated Press

TALLAHASSEE — Florida's unemployment has dropped below 10 percent.

Gov. Rick Scott personally handled the conference call on Friday to boast that Florida's unemployment for December was 9.9 percent.

Florida's jobless rate is still significantly above the national unemployment figure of 8.5 percent and 913,000 eligible workers are still-hunting for jobs across the state.

Scott campaigned on creating some 700,000 new jobs over a seven-year period assuming he'd win re-election in 2014. He said his strategy has led to the creation of 140,000 new jobs since he took office in January 2011.

Scott says Florida has added jobs at a faster rate over the past four months than any other state.

Florida’s Unemployment Drops 2.1 Percentage Points

Governor Rick Scott

TALLAHASSEE – Governor Rick Scott announced today that Florida’s unemployment rate went down again in the last month of 2011 to 9.9 percent. A total of 5,100 new private-sector jobs were also added in December, solidifying Florida’s status as one of the nation’s leaders in job creation last year.

Since Governor Scott took office, the state’s unemployment rate has dropped 2.1 percentage points, from a high of 12 percent in December 2010, to the first single-digit unemployment rate in more than two-and-a-half years in December 2011.

 “A good way to judge the direction of Florida’s economy is to look at the percentage of people who were unemployed one year ago and now have jobs,” said Governor Scott.  “Today that number is 2.1 percentage points lower than it was in 2010, meaning more of Florida’s families are finding jobs. It is my goal to give every Floridian who wants a job the opportunity to get to work.”

Since January 2011, more than 12 private sector jobs have been created for every public-sector job lost, and Florida businesses have created 141,500 private-sector jobs with an average of 12,800 jobs per month.