DUVAL COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 The unemployment rate in Northeast Florida rose to 4.8% in August, according to the latest employment report by CareerSource covering Baker, Clay, Duval, Nassau, Putnam and St. Johns counties.<\/p>\n
The rate was 0.3 percentage points higher than the region\u2019s 4.5% rate in August 2025. The region\u2019s unemployment rate was also 0.2 percentage points higher than Florida\u2019s 4.6% rate.<\/p>\n
The region\u2019s labor force totaled 877,991, down by 2,287 people, or 0.3%, from a year earlier. There were 42,342 unemployed residents in the region.<\/p>\n
Putnam County had the highest unemployment rate in the region at 5.6%, followed by:<\/p>\n
Baker County: 5.0%<\/p>\n
Duval County: 4.9%<\/p>\n
Clay County: 4.7%<\/p>\n
St. Johns County: 4.7%<\/p>\n
Nassau County: 4.6%<\/p>\n
The Jacksonville metropolitan statistical area had an unemployment rate of 4.8% in August, down from 4.9% in July but up from 4.4% a year earlier.<\/p>\n
Jacksonville-area jobs<\/p>\n
Nonagricultural employment in the Jacksonville MSA totaled 803,800 in August, an increase of 500 jobs, or 0.1%, over the year.<\/p>\n
The industries that gained jobs over the year were:<\/p>\n
Education and health services: 4,500 jobs<\/p>\n
Professional and business services: 2,300 jobs<\/p>\n
Manufacturing: 500 jobs<\/p>\n
Mining, logging and construction: 400 jobs<\/p>\n
Trade, transportation and utilities: 200 jobs<\/p>\n
Other services: 200 jobs<\/p>\n
Education and health services grew 3.3% over the year, while professional and business services grew 2%. Manufacturing grew 1.4%, mining, logging and construction grew 0.7% and other services grew 0.7%.<\/p>\n
Those industries grew faster in the Jacksonville MSA than statewide, according to the report.<\/p>\n
The Jacksonville MSA tied for the highest annual job growth among the state\u2019s metropolitan areas in the other services industry, which added 200 jobs. The area also had the third-fastest annual job growth rate among the state\u2019s metropolitan areas in mining, logging and construction, which grew 0.7%.<\/p>\n
Most in-demand jobs<\/p>\n
The report listed these as the region\u2019s most in-demand jobs, based on current job openings:<\/p>\n
Retail salespersons: 1,376 openings<\/p>\n
Fast food and counter workers: 1,041<\/p>\n
First-line supervisors of retail sales workers: 955<\/p>\n
Registered nurses: 901<\/p>\n
First-line supervisors of food preparation and serving workers: 892<\/p>\n
The data are subject to revision.<\/p>\n
The report was prepared by CareerSource Northeast Florida<\/a> using data from the Florida Department of Commerce\u2019s Bureau of Workforce Statistics and Economic Research<\/a>.<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUVAL COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 The unemployment rate in Northeast Florida rose to 4.8% in August, according to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[29718,1039,1687,28,30,29,960,2159,34927],"class_list":["post-403890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-baker-county","tag-duval-county","tag-employment","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-jobs","tag-money","tag-putnam-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}