Miami Unemployment Crisis Continues Growing
MIAMI (CBSMiami.com) – Florida Governor Rick Scott continues to tout the need to create jobs across the state of Florida. That is especially true in the Miami metropolitan area where the jobless crisis is reaching levels not seen in decades.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for the month of June, the metropolitan area of Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall had the highest jobless rate of any of the 11 largest metropolitan areas measured. The BLS said the Miami metro area had a jobless rate of 13.9 percent, higher than Detroit.
The BLS numbers run along the same lines as the state produced at the end of July. But, on the state numbers, when you add in workers who have given up looking for jobs, the underemployed, and other workers, the true unemployment in Miami-Dade County stands at 22 percent.
Things don't appear to be getting any better in South Florida, or around the country. A new report from a consultancy group in Chicago found that planned job cuts surged to a 16-month high in July, up roughly 60 percent since June.
The Conference Board found that online job postings are also dropping. The Conference Board found that online labor demand dropped by 217,000 in July alone.
In Miami, the Conference Board found that there are now 5 people for every one job advertised. That's third worst in the country behind only Riverside, California and Sacramento, California.
The impact of the jobless will be exacerbated in the near future as the federal debt deal approved Tuesday did not reinstate long-term unemployment benefits.
The benefits were extended last year as part of a deal that included the GOP's demand for a two-year expansion of the Bush tax cuts.
