Flagler County’s unemployment was 4.4 percent in November, up a decimal point from a revised 4.3 percent the previous month, a statistically insignificant change, even as the number of unemployed residents declined slightly. More alarmingly: housing sales hit a seven-year low.
The county’s labor force again declined, losing over 400 workers and continuing a trend of the last few months. The county’s labor force has declined by 850 people since last year at this point. The labor force reflects working-age people and families in a county where a third of the population is 65 and over, and half the adult population does not work.
The number of employed people who live in Flagler County (not necessarily the number of people employed in the county) also continued to decline just as sharply, losing 428 people and falling to its lowest level in two years, at a total of 48,738. The last time it was lower was in January 2023, when it was 48,447 and rising. It peaked that year at just over 50,000, but the county hasn’t sustained that level, with steady declines since even though in 2024, Florida posted a 2 percent population increase for the year, the fastest rate in the nation (only the District of Columbia exceeded Florida’s rate.)
Of itself the decline in the labor force–which had been growing sharply since the end of Covid–does not necessarily signal a slowdown in the county’s demographics or its economy. But paired with other indicators, it might. One of those indicators is the number of closed house sales in the county in November. That number fell for the fourth consecutive month, to 157, and to its lowest level since February 2017, when 151 sales closed even though the median sale price of $369,000 is near the average for the entire year.
New pending sales are also relatively lower, though new listings are flat or slightly down. The county’s inventory of new homes has been climbing steadily since it bottomed out at too-low levels in the winter of 2022, when there were barely 200 single-family houses available. But the inventory has risen almost every month since, peaking in October at 1,304 houses, and declining only slightly to 1,291 in November. Consequently, the months’ supply of houses has also climbed to 5.5 months, to its highest level in 10 years. It was last this high in mid-2014, and was on the decline. On the brighter side, there was only one foreclosure in November, and no short sales.
Florida’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 3.4 percent in November 2024, up 0.1 percentage point for the first time in seven months. It had been stuck at 3.3 percent since April. The state added 61,500 jobs in November. There were 376,000 officially jobless Floridians, though the actual figure is higher. The state only reports those Floridians who qualify for the 12 weeks of unemployment checks–the stingiest benefit in the nation. Once the unemployed run out, they are no longer counted. In the federal government’s alternative measure of unemployment and under-employment, the so-called U-6 rate, Florida’s rate is at 6.3 percent. The national rate is 7.4 percent.
Meanwhile consumer sentiment, or confidence, among Floridians surged in November to 81.1, its highest level in more than three years, rising 3.7 points from a revised figure of 77.4 in October, according to the University of Florida’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research .
“The 3.7-point increase in consumer sentiment is one of the largest in over three and a half years, specifically since March 2021,” said Hector H. Sandoval, director of the Economic Analysis Program at UF’s Bureau. “The most significant changes occurred in Floridians’ expectations regarding their personal finances over the next year, as well as expectations about the national economy over the next year and five years. Notably, outlooks on the national economy reached levels not seen since just before the pandemic in early 2020.”
It was the bureau’s first reading after the Nov. 5 election, reflecting at least a degree of partisan rather necessarily evidentiary sentiment in a state that voted for Donald Trump by a 13-percent margin.
