Panama City payrolls shrink in October
The following is an installment in an ongoing series of monthly updates on the employment situation in select Northwest Florida markets.
The following is an installment in an ongoing series of monthly updates on the employment situation in select Northwest Florida markets.
By Rick Harper, Ph.D.
rharper@uwf.edu
The metro area jobs report for October was released on Nov. 21, and Panama City registered 73,600 jobs seasonally adjusted on nonfarm payrolls. This was a decrease of 700 jobs relative to October 2013.
The 0.9 percent decrease for the metro area was substantially below the national increase of 1.9 percent, as well as the Florida increase of 2.7 percent. However, the metro area unemployment rate was 5.8 percent, down from 6.1 percent for October 2013.
Of the area’s 10 major economic sectors, trade and transportation turned in the strongest performance, accounting for 200 net new jobs over the year. The other services sector showed the greatest percentage loss over the period, at 7.7 percent. But because that sector is only about 3.3 percent of total employment, it was a change of some 200 jobs over the prior year’s figure.
The leisure and hospitality sector registered a job loss of 500 over the year. Because the leisure and hospitality sector is large, accounting for 17 percent of all employment, those 500 jobs equated to a 3.8 percent annual shrinkage rate.
The education and health care sector and the finance, insurance and real estate sector each lost about 200 jobs over the year, while government employment grew by 100.
Panama City is still some 3,400 jobs short of the peak reached in late 2006 at the height of the real estate bubble. However, 700 jobs per year shrinkage registered over the past year is well below the average 12-month growth of 400 seen since the economy began regaining jobs after employment bottomed out in late 2009. The latest figures are now 2,100 jobs above the January 2010 figure on a seasonally adjusted basis.
Dr. Rick Harper serves as assistant vice president for economic development at the University of West Florida in Pensacola, Florida. He directs UWF’s Office of Economic Development and Engagement, which includes the Haas Center for Business Research and Economic Development and the Florida Small Business Development Center Network. He also directs the Studer Institute.
