ORLANDO, Fla. – Florida’s unemployment rate shot up to 4.3% in March, as coronavirus-induced closures of Florida’s theme parks, hotels and large numbers of businesses caused the highest levels of joblessness in almost two years.
It was a dramatic increase from the state's previous month's unemployment rate of 2.8%. Florida's workforce shrank by 120,000 workers from February to March, labor officials said.
Economists warned that March's preliminary numbers didn't capture the extent of the damage caused by business closures. “Just because it’s still pretty recent, the data cannot capture the current economic situation.
It still shows a very dark outlook,” said Hector H. Sandoval, the director of the economic analysis program for the Bureau of