2015 Job Growth Leads to Record-High Employment

For the past five years, Florida TaxWatch has published an annual review that has analyzed the most recent year’s employment figures. As December comes to a close and the New Year is upon us, TaxWatch looks to assess how our job market fared in 2015. Since the Economic Commentary analysis of Florida’s job market published in January 2011, Florida has added nearly 975,000 nonfarm jobs. There has also been a consistent and positive trend for job growth over that time span. In the past year alone, Florida has added approximately 240,000 nonfarm jobs, a sign that Florida’s economy is still on the rise going in to 2016.

Over the past year, Florida’s job market has seen strong employment growth in all of the major private economic sectors. In fact, the only industry which saw a reduction in employment was the government sector. Employment figures show Florida’s nonfarm employment above 8,000,000 for the first time since the Great Recession. In fact, the most recent data released (Florida’s preliminary October data) predict nonfarm employment to reach 8,150,200—higher than pre-recession employment.