Two big economic reports for Florida just came out, and at first glance, they look great. Job growth spiked in April by more than 10,000 from the month before, and tourism numbers for the first quarter of 2019 more than doubled from the previous quarter.
But economic analyst Hank Fishkind tells 90.7’s Nicole Darden Creston the news isn’t quite as good as it seems.
"The April new hiring number was very strong, 16,700, which sounds great," says Fishkind.
"But if we annualize that number, it comes out to be 200,000 new jobs. Now that's still a good number, but it's down significantly from the pace of job growth we've enjoyed since 2015, which peaked at over 300,000 and has been consistently in the 230,000- 240,000 per year range. So this number, as good as it was for April, really is a bit disappointing when you put it into perspective."
Fishkind says the falling unemployment rate isn't all good news either.
"It's important to note that the reason the unemployment rate in Florida dipped in April was because the labor force contracted a bit, not because there were so many new jobs, so that was a bit surprising too."