Labor Force and Employment

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Labor Force and Employment

Last Updated: November 15th, 2024

Summary

• The region’s seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate was 3.5 percent in October 2024, unchanged from the prior month and 0.3 percentage points over October 2023.
• Lee County’s seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate was 3.5 percent in October 2024, unchanged from the previous month and 0.2 percentage points over the same month last year.
• The unemployment rate in Collier County was 3.3 percent in October 2024, unchanged from September 2024 and 0.3 percentage points above October 2023.
• Charlotte County’s unemployment rate was 4.2 percent in October 2024, up 0.1 percentage points from the prior month and a 0.7 percentage point increase from October 2023.
• Hendry’s unemployment rate was 4.9 percent in October 2024, unchanged from last month and 0.1 percentage points below the same month last year.
• Glades County had an unemployment rate of 4.2 percent in October 2024, unchanged from the previous month and 0.1 percentage points below October 2023.

About the Data

The charts above show total persons age 16 and over that were employed and unemployed in each county. The data comes from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics and is provided by the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (FDEO). The FDEO provides the following definitions regarding employment and unemployment:

• A person is considered employed if they did any work as paid employees, worked in their own business or farm, or worked 15 hours or more as unpaid workers in a family business during the reference week (normally the week including the 12th of the month). It also includes those who had a job but did not work due to a temporary absence. Each employed person is counted only once, even if they had more than one job.
• A person is considered unemployed if they did not have a job during the reference week, were available for work, and made specific efforts to find a job sometime during the 4 weeks prior to the reference week. 

The labor force is the sum of employed and unemployed in a given month, while the unemployment rate is the percent of the labor force that was unemployed. All data is seasonally-adjusted by the Regional Economic Research Institute using the X13-ARIMA-SEATS seasonal adjustment program, software that is produced, distributed and maintained by the U.S. Census Bureau. All data is updated on a monthly basis.