Florida’s unemployment rate continues to drop

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) – Florida’s unemployment rate continues to drop.

New numbers released Friday show that the state’s unemployment rate for December was 5.6 percent. That’s dip of 0.2 percent from the previous month.

The state’s unemployment rate matches the national unemployment rate.

Florida added an estimated 12,700 jobs in December. The unemployment rate is the lowest it has been since the spring of 2008 when it was 5.4 percent.

The new figures show there are roughly 543,000 people out of work in the state.

Gov. Rick Scott announced the new jobs numbers during a visit to an ocean freight shipping company in South Florida.

Florida’s unemployment rate drop since 2010 was initially because people stopped looking for work. But economists say that trend changed in 2014 as the economy started to recover.