The final numbers tell the tale: Last year was good for employment on the Treasure Coast.
Marcelo Dossantos, vice president of strategic initiatives at CareerSource Research Coast, said in an emailed response to questions that job growth during 2018 was spread over several industry sectors.
“The jobs market remains hot on the Treasure Coast with major sectors of our local economy leading the way in adding jobs (trade, transportation and utilities), (education and health services), (mining, logging, and construction), leisure and hospitality, and professional and business services,” Dossantos said in the email.
The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity released its final jobs report for 2018 last Friday, covering December. According to the report, St. Lucie County had a not-seasonally-adjusted, nonagricultural unemployment rate of 4 percent in December; it was 4.6 percent in December 2017. Florida’s not-seasonally-adjusted and seasonally-adjusted nonagricultural unemployment rate was 3.3 percent in December. The nation’s was at 3.7 percent. Of the three, the county had the largest change in employment over the year.
At press time the partial federal government shutdown is continuing, which has some economists warning of it becoming an economic drag. It affects nine federal departments and, nationally, an estimated 800,000 federal works who are either furloughed or working for wages that will be paid after their departments are funded again. Florida has about 13,000 of those affected federal workers.
“From what I have been able to gather, once you factor out postal workers and retirees, there are probably 600 to 700 federal employees on the Treasure Coast that may be affected, and I am not sure of the ripple effects,” Dossantos said.
The Port St. Lucie Metropolitan Statistical Area – which includes all of St. Lucie and Martin counties – picked up about 5,600 jobs from the end of 2017 to the end of 2018. It ended ’18 with about 152,800.
Education and health services had the largest number of added jobs over the year – 1,100. Professional and business services followed closely with 1,000. The mining, logging and construction sector added 900 jobs over 2018. Leisure and hospitality, 800.
Other sectors adding jobs were government with 400. Financial activities and other services, which includes things such as auto mechanics, both added 200 jobs in the MSA.
Manufacturing is credited with adding 100 new jobs to the area in 2018. The information industry was unchanged.
The national and state unemployment rates are calculated using a variety of methods. Among them are telephone interviews with workers. Those that are able to work and report not having jobs, but looked for employment in the previous 30 days, are counted as unemployed. Discouraged workers – those who are able to work and want jobs, but have not sought employment in the previous 30 days – are not counted in the unemployment figure.
The City of Fort Pierce and CareerSource Research Coast are hosting a job fair on Wednesday, Jan. 30, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Havert L. Fenn Center, 2000 Virginia Ave. To register, visit www.careersourcerc.com/upcoming-event/. Employers with open positions are welcomed to attend. For more, contact Business Services at CareerSource, 866-482-4473.
