The State of Working Florida 2010

Florida International University released economic department released a must read "The State of Working Florida 2010" on Labor Day. The report takes a devastating look on how the recession has damaged Florida's economy. Reading the report is the economic equivalent of staring at a car wreak. The numbers are ugly. A disturbing trend that happened before the depression and is now taking place in Florida and the rest of America is the rich get richer as the poor get poorer.

The gap between top and bottom earners increased again after the previous year’s decline. The top 20% earned 3.55 times what the bottom 10% earned per hour.

So much for trickle down economics.

Florida needs to create 900,000 to get back to the less than stellar pre-recession employment numbers of December 2007. Many people who are employed are forced to take part-time jobs. 18.4% are underemployed. Long-term unemployment has increased. There is no bright side to the FIU report. Below are the numbers.

Employment

* The unemployment rate in Florida reached an all time high in March 2010 of 12.3%, three times what it had been before the recession started.

* African Americans had the highest unemployment rate, averaging 15.4% in 2009, compared to 11.6% for Hispanics and 8.9% for Non-Hispanic Whites. African Americans also had the highest increase in unemployment, adding 7 percentage points, compared to 4.2 percentage points and 3.8 percentage points respectively.

* By April 2010, Florida was missing over 900,000 jobs.

* Workers who have managed to keep their jobs are on average working fewer hours. Average weekly hours per employee fell from 35.4 in 2007 to 35.0 in 2009.

* Underemployment, which includes people who are not working enough hours and who are discouraged from looking for work, has risen from an average of 8.0% in 2007 to 18.4% in 2009, or almost one in five workers.

* Over a third of the unemployed (37.2%) have been out of work longer than 6 months in Florida.

* Men have higher unemployment levels than women for the first time due to heavy losses in industries such as construction, which are heavily male, and less impact on sectors where women tend to be employed such as Education and Health Services.

Wages

*Wages for the top 20% of earners increased by 1.6% in 2009 while wages for the bottom 20% remained flat.

* The median hourly wage for very low-wage earners, the bottom 10%, declined from $8.02 to $7.97 per hour from 2008 to 2009.

* The gap between top and bottom earners increased again after the previous year’s decline. The top 20% earned 3.55 times what the bottom 10% earned per hour.

* The gap between men’s and women’s wages widened back to 2004 levels. Women’s wages dropped from $15.16 per hour in 2008 to $14.25 in 2009 while men’s wages remained essentially flat at close to $17.00 per hour.

* Wages for African American workers dropped by $0.51 per hour (3.85%), while wages for Hispanic workers remained flat and increased for White non-Hispanic workers by $0.19 (1.13%).

* In 2008, the gap between wages for minority and White workers was at its narrowest point since the early 90’s for Hispanic workers and since the early 80’s for African Americans. But the recession has erased these gains, most significantly for African American workers who went from 78.6 percent of White worker’s wages in 2008 to 74.8 percent in 2009.

Jobs

* From December 2007, when the recession officially started, to March 2010, Florida lost an average of 28,000 jobs per month, or almost 1,000 jobs per day.

* Construction jobs started declining in Florida in July 2006, 17 months before the official start of the recession. In total, the construction industry lost 331,900 (48.3%) jobs between July 2006 and January of 2010.

* Of the other major industries in the state, Professional and Business Services lost 142,500 jobs, Manufacturing lost 82,500 jobs, Retail trade has lost 105,800 jobs, and Leisure and Hospitality has lost 74,000 jobs.

* The only industry which did not lose jobs from 2007 to 2009 was Education and Health Services, which grew by 3.3%, adding 33,900 jobs.

* Through the first 6 months of 2010, employment in Florida has grown at an annualized rate of 2.3%. At this rate, it will take over 4 years for employment in Florida to return to pre-recession levels.