Unemployment up in May

After two months of falling unemployment numbers, Franklin County jobless rate rose a little in May. 309 people were looking for work in Franklin County saw last month, up from 288 in April. Preliminary unemployment was 6.4 percent, nearly double what it was in 2008. But there are a lot of Florida counties that would envy our unemployment rate, only Liberty and Monroe counties have lower unemployment than we do. The average unemployment in Florida hit 10 percent in May – 33 of Florida’s 67 counties have unemployment rates over 10 percent. Gulf county saw a big spike in unemployment last month – 542 people were jobless there in May up from 496 in April. The unemployment rate was 8.4 percent. Gulf County may have even larger unemployment in the near future as the Arizona Chemical Plant is expected to close next month affecting 77 employees. In Wakulla County unemployment rose from 6.5 percent to 7.1 percent; Liberty County continued to have the lowest unemployment of any county in Florida in May at 5 percent.