TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Hernando Today

Local Unemployment Worst Since 1983

ADVERTISEMENT

By TONY HOLT

Hernando Today

Published: January 24, 2009

TALLAHASSEE - The Christmas shopping season often can put a colorful coating on an otherwise rotten economy.

Sales go up and employment figures usually swell to accommodate the spurt of business in the retail sector. That has often been the case even during some recessions - like in the early 1990s or 2000s.

Not this recession.

For December 2008, Hernando County posted the highest unemployment rate in more than 25 years - 10.9 percent.

Hernando has the third-highest unemployment in all of Florida - behind Flagler and Hamilton counties. Florida's unemployment rate is 8.1 percent - its highest since September 1992, according to the Agency for Workforce Innovation.

"This is definitely unusual," said Pasco-Hernando Workforce Board spokesman Ken Russ, who paused several times as he tried to articulate the severity of the local job market.

During a Friday morning conference call with economists in Tallahassee, he was told there would be "slower-than-average growth" in 2010 and 2011. The job market could continue to worsen through most of the current year, he said.

Judging by the number of people seeking unemployment aid last month, Russ and others at the Workforce Board were expecting bad news.

"We thought it was actually going to get a little higher than (10.9)," he said.

For most of 2008, Hendry County - located between Fort Myers and Lake Okeechobee - posted the highest unemployment. In November 2008, the small agriculturally based county had an unemployment rate of 11.7. For December, it dropped to 10.5 percent.

That hasn't raised the spirits among the residents in Hendry. Many expect it to increase again, perhaps as early as next month.

"It's more agricultural related," warned county spokesman Ron Zimmerly. "Farmers decided to plant some more crops and they hired some more people to do the work. It wasn't industrial or anything like that, so I don't think it will be sustained."

A closer look at Hernando County's numbers shows the total increase in the number of out-of-work, able-bodied people from November to December was 395.

The county's total labor force is 64,289. Nearly 7,000 of them are unemployed.

The numbers have consistently gotten worse since April 2008, when unemployment was at 6.6 percent. It has increased every month since. The biggest jump was from June to July, when it rose from 7.5 to 8.4.

Hernando County's unemployment average for 2008 was 8.3 percent.

By comparison, the unemployment rate for the first full year of the Great Depression was 8.7.

Since 1976, the state had worse labor figures only four times - in 1976, 1982, 1983 and 1992, when the unemployment rates were 9.3, 8.4, 8.5 and 8.4, respectively.

Historically, unemployment is at its highest following a recession. Hernando County reached 11.4 percent in June 1983, which followed the recession of 1981 and 1982, said AWI economist Rebecca Rust.

The highest unemployment on record for Hernando was in June 1976, when it rose to 20.7 percent. That came after the recession of 1974 and 1975.

It is not known when the current recession will end, but unemployment is almost certain to continue on an upward trend for the foreseeable future, said Rust.

Reporter Tony Holt can be reached at 352-544-5283 or wholt@hernandotoday.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT