Florida's workforce is larger than New York's for first time ever
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FOX Business’ Ashley Webster reports from Clearwater, Florida, where he’s talking to former blue state residents about why they moved south.
Florida's economic boom has pushed the Sunshine State above New York in the number of employed workers for the first time.
According to data released this week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for the month of December 2022, Florida had 9.669 million employed workers compared to New York's 9.661 million. That marked the first time since the BLS began using this data set in 1982 that Florida's workforce was larger than New York's.
A spokesman for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) told FOX Business, "As Governor DeSantis said in his second inaugural speech, 'It is often said that our federalist constitutional system – with fifty states able to pursue their own unique policies – represents a laboratory of democracy.' Florida has exemplified the successful example of freedom, and our success is revealed in metrics like this."
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Florida’s economy and population have grown at a rapid rate in recent years. (iStock / iStock) The spokesman also pointed to data indicating that Florida has led the country in new business formations with over 1.7 million created since January 2020 and that over one-third of those were launched in 2022 alone. In early 2020 prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, New York had about 9.8 million jobs to Florida's 9.1 million jobs based on BLS data. The two states' workforces were roughly equal in size from April to July 2020 while both were recovering jobs lost during the initial economic contraction due to pandemic restrictions. US HOUSING AFFORDABILITY HELL ‘CAN’T BEAT' THE FLORIDA HEAT TOPSHOT – Republican gubernatorial candidate for Florida Ron DeSantis with his wife Casey DeSantis speaks to supporters during an election night watch party at the Convention Center in Tampa, Florida, on November 8, 2022. – During DeSantis’ tenure as (GIORGIO VIERA/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images) By the fall of 2020, New York had recovered enough jobs to open a roughly 300,000 job gap between it and Florida. But Florida began to narrow that gap to about 200,000 jobs by the start of 2021, and to 100,000 for most of 2022. By December 2022, Florida surpassed the Empire State for the first time ever – albeit by a relatively narrow margin of roughly 8,000 jobs. Last year also marked another milestone for Florida, as it reached 9.2 million jobs and the state's labor force was larger than it was prior to the pandemic. For comparison, New York's labor force was about 200,000 jobs below its pre-pandemic level in the December data from the BLS. NEW YORKERS ABANDONING THEIR STATE IN RECORD NUMBERS FOR SUNNY CLIMATES, LOW TAXES OF FLORIDA: REPORT The Port Canaveral cruise ship terminal is pictured on Saturday, March 14, 2020 in Cape Canaveral, Fla. – Florida’s population grew at the fastest rate in the country in 2022. ( (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images) / Getty Images) Florida's economic growth has been driven by an influx of new residents who have moved to the state in the past year. Data released by the Census Bureau in December showed that Florida was America's fastest-growing state for the first time since 1957. GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE Florida's population grew by 416,754 residents, or 1.9%, from 2021 to 2022 to more than 22.2 million. New York had the largest population decrease of all 50 states from 2021 to 2022, as it declined by 180,341 residents, or -0.9%, to about 19.6 million. Source: Read Full Article
