Florida unemployment rate triples in April to nearly 13%

Florida’s unemployment rate skyrocketed to 12.9% in April from 4.3% in March and from 2.8% in February, before the pandemic caused a state and nationwide closure of many businesses. About 1.3 million Floridians had lost their jobs out of a workforce of 10 million when this survey for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics was conducted in mid-April, a number that has continued to climb into May.

The national unemployment rate reached 14.7% in April, up from 3.5% in February, reaching levels not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s