Gainesville-area unemployment increases to 8.4%

Gainesville's ranks of the unemployed swelled nearly a percentage point in June to 8.4 percent, the biggest increase in a year, according to Florida's Agency for Workforce Innovation. In May the rate was 7.6 percent.

The steep increase was counter to Florida's overall report, which saw the state's seasonally adjusted unemployment figure dip to 11.4 percent last month, down from 11.7 percent in May.

The Gainesville rate covers the Gainesville Metropolitan Statistical Area of Alachua and Gilchrist counties. Alachua County on its own had an 8.4 percent unemployment rate in June, up from 7.5 percent in May.

The contrast in unemployment trends between the Gainesville MSA and Florida is in part due to Gainesville being primarily a service-sector economy. That sector lags behind most others, said Bob Walther, president of Wal-Staf Personal Services, which has locations in Ocala, Gainesville and Lake City.

“We don't see a lot of things improving…and we don't have a lot of manufacturing in Alachua County,” he said.

Christopher McCarty, with the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Florida, said it's difficult to account for the area's dramatic unemployment increase for June.

The figure might have been skewed, he said. In other communities, many of the long-term unemployed may no longer be looking for work and are no longer counted among the labor force. In contrast, in Gainesville the perception might be that there is work to be had; so the unemployed don't stop looking, and as a result stay on the rolls of the unemployed.

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Gainesville-area unemployment increases to 8.4% - Gainesville Sun - July 16, 2010te