Florida’s employers have been adding them like few states in the country since the pandemic. This isn’t exactly new news, but we do have new related news. One of the biggest misperceptions throughout the past year is that the labor market is as strong as it's ever been. That’s simply not been close to being the case. There still aren’t as many people working today as there were prior to the pandemic. Yes, it’s true that many companies have had openings that reached record levels earlier this year. But the reason why record job openings didn’t translate into record employment is because many people had been conditioned to be lazy and live off of the government during the pandemic. Oh sorry, scratch that. That wasn’t very PC, was it? Let me rephrase... Had dropped out of the workforce and thus weren’t counted in the unemployment rate. But there are four states in particular where that hasn’t been the case. States where both the labor participation rate and total workforce are at record levels. And those states – Idaho, Utah, Texas and Florida. Notice a political trend there? In Florida’s case our labor force is now 4% larger than it was pre-pandemic. And that’s despite Florida’s demographics skewing older as Florida’s the 5th oldest state in the country. What this points to is another effect of pandemic policy. It’s not just that we have a better economy with better employment opportunities compared to other states. It’s that we have a more willing and engaged workforce than in other states where people were essentially paid to do nothing for the better part of two years. And our economy is generally benefiting from that effect as well. Not all unemployment rates are created equal, just as work ethic and opportunity aren’t either.
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