Miami-Dade Leads the State in Annual Job Growth in Education and Health Services

March 14, 2017

Miami-Dade County had the highest annual job growth in education and health services (8,100 jobs) compared to other metro areas in Florida from January 2016 to January 2017, according to statistics released March 10.

“Education and health services provide above-average paying wages,” said Jaap Donath, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Research & Strategic Planning for the Miami-Dade Beacon Council. “We also gained more than 5,000 jobs in professional services which include jobs within our target industries like creative design, life sciences and tech. The One Community One Goal initiative continues to help grow high-paying jobs in Miami-Dade.”

The numbers analyzed

Miami-Dade County created 31,800 new nonagricultural payroll jobs (not seasonally adjusted), from January 2016 to January 2017 which was a 2.8 percent increase. Miami-Dade County continues to show year over year gains. Improvements in the non-farm payroll jobs can be found in a variety of sectors. Between December 2016 and January 2017, Miami-Dade County decreased nonagricultural payroll jobs by 11,300 or 1.0 percentage point.

The not seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Miami- Dade County was 5.1 in January 2017, which was a 0.2 percentage point decrease from January 2016 at 5.3 percent, and 0.3 percentage point decrease from December 2016 at 5.4 percent.

In January 2017, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Miami-Dade County (taking seasonal fluctuations in the labor force into consideration) was 5.5 percent, which is the same as December 2016.

From the data and analysis above, we see continued improvement in the local economy. Nevertheless, the community needs to remain focused on job-creation projects in targeted industries. These industries have been identified as the Miami-Dade County industries most able to create additional well-paying job opportunities, leading to an improved quality of life for Miami-Dade County residents. The Miami-Dade Beacon Council continues to aggressively work on attracting new companies to our community and work on the expansion and retention of existing business. For more information, visit www.beaconcouncil.com.

The job creation numbers are derived from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Employment Statistics Program (CES), and only account for non-farm payroll jobs. However, the unemployment rates are derived from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Local Area Unemployment Statistics Program (LAUS), which includes farm payroll jobs as well as self-employed workers.

In addition, the federal government typically conducts interviews in sample households to determine the unemployment rate. Miami-Dade County is one of six metropolitan areas in the United States that uses a different method solely based on a statistical model derived from several data sets.

* The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is unavailable at the time this report was composed.