Jacksonville’s unemployment rate jumped in June to its highest level since the coronavirus pandemic with continued slow job growth, the Florida Department of Commerce reported July 18.
The jobless rate in the Jacksonville metropolitan area of Baker, Clay, Duval, Nassau and St. Johns counties rose from 3.6% in May to 4.2% in June.
That was the highest unemployment rate in the region since it was 4.3% in August 2021, when the economy was recovering from pandemic-related job losses.
June is typically a month when the unemployment rate rises as new college and high school graduates enter the labor force and don’t immediately find jobs. The number of people in the labor force in the metro area, consisting of people with jobs and people actively looking for work, rose by almost 4,000 to 860,527 in June.
However, the number of people employed fell by almost 300 to 824,796.
The Department of Commerce does not adjust its monthly labor force data in local areas for seasonal factors like the annual influx of new graduates in the spring.
The agency did say that Florida’s statewide seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in June was unchanged from May at 3.7%. Before the seasonal adjustment, the state’s jobless rate rose by 0.4 percentage points to 3.9%.
All five counties in the Jacksonville area had significant increases in the unemployment rate in June, with Duval County rising by half a percentage point to 4.2%.
Clay County was at 4.1%, Baker and St. Johns were at 4% and Nassau was at 3.9%.
Payrolls at nonagricultural employers in the Jacksonville area rose by 8,900 jobs from June 2024 through June 2025, a 1.1% growth rate.
The growth rate matched the 1.1% rate in May, which is a post-pandemic low.
The biggest job losses continued to be in the financial activities sector which had a net loss of 5,500 jobs in the 12-month period, a 7.3% decline.
The broad category of administrative and support and waste management and remediation services had a net decline of 2,100 jobs, or 3.8%.
The other industry sector with a net decline was manufacturing, which lost 100 jobs, or 0.3%.
The largest job gains were in the private education and health services sector which added 8,600 jobs, or 6.6%.
Professional, scientific and technical services added 3,100 jobs, or 5.5%.
Construction jobs grew by 1,400, or 2.7%.
Statewide, Florida added 142,300 nonfarm jobs in the 12 months, a 1.4% increase.