This week we've invited Mason Williams, our Chief Investment Officer, at Coral Gables Trust Company to give us a quick insight and share his predictions on the latest local and national job report numbers for South Florida. Yes! Florida continues to be a robust State for jobs.

I was recently asked at a conference would South Florida continue to show job growth in Q4 of 2018 and into 2019? Yes! I responded. Because of its strong and steady annual job growth rate of 2.4% compared to the national rate of 1.9% over the past year, and because of the state unemployment rate of 3.8% matching the national average of 3.8%. Yes! Florida is and will continue to be job strong. 

When we look at the South Florida/Miami-Dade metro area key indicators, the unemployment rate of 3.9% is also in-line with the state and national average.  And further north, the Broward metro region has a 3.2% unemployment rate with the construction sector up 9.2% year over year. Everything points to further job gains.  

In addition, Florida population growth is expected to increase marginally given the tax friendly nature of the state. The state population growth grew 1.6% from 2016 to 2017 and a similar trend should take place in 2018, providing adequate support for future employment gains as well.

Lastly, we see the wage growth in the state surpassing the national wage growth trend. A 3.0% wage growth took place from 2016 to 2017 and is expected to continue.  As the competition for talent remains strong and population trends continue to be favorable, Florida will likely continue to be a robust State for jobs.