Latest job numbers reveal set-backs on job creation

Yes, Florida's unemployment rate dropped to 9.6 percent in January — its lowest point since March 2009.

But the news isn't so great for Gov. Rick Scott, who made creating 700,000 jobs in seven years his bold, catchy campaign promise.

Even though the state's unemployment rate is down, actual job numbers are down, too — 38,600 jobs lost in January, economists reported Tuesday. The good-news, bad-news numbers are largely because the two statistics measure different things.

For Scott, the bottom line is this: The state created 77,100 jobs from January 2011 through January 2012. The number's even lower — 54,200 jobs — if you exclude the month Scott was sworn into office. Either measure is far short of the deal Scott made with voters who elected him in 2010, when he said he would create 700,000 jobs in seven years. 

PolitiFact Florida continues to rate his centerpiece promise Stalled.

Scott, who celebrated a rosy December jobs report with a press conference, did not take questions from reporters Tuesday. His office issued a statement that focused on the unemployment drop, but not the job creation numbers:

"Florida's unemployment rate has now dropped for 11 of the last 13 months and this is the second consecutive month the unemployment rate has been below 10 percent," Scott said in the statement. "It's great to see Florida's economy is trending in the right direction and our unemployment rate is the lowest in three years."

During the campaign, Scott created a seven-step plan that he said would lead to the creation of 700,000 jobs in seven years. When asked by reporters, Scott said those jobs would be in addition to the jobs economists predicted would be created naturally — by either population growth or growth in the overall economy.

But Scott flip-flopped months into office, announcing in October that he would rely "on actual job growth each month," not on "what an economist in Tallahassee predicts" the state may gain or lose.

Now even that modified promise is looking shaky.

Originally, employment data measured by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics helped Scott claim that he added 130,000 jobs in 2011 — often illustrated by posters depicting skyrocketing job growth for the private sector as government jobs trended negative.

That outlook is worse now that economists crunched the data again.

The 2011 net jobs created was really 115,700, according to revised data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In January 2012, the state lost 38,600 nonfarm jobs -- the largest drop in the country.

We should note that January 2012 numbers are preliminary. Previous job losses identified in January 2010 and January 2011 were later reported as months with job gains.

Every year, economists revisit the monthly jobs data, which is initially based on a survey of employers, said Sean Snaith, a University of Central Florida economist. They compare the survey results with tax forms, and big fixes are necessary sometimes.

"It's just the nature of the beast," Snaith said.

Still, since Scott took office, the state has added 77,100 jobs, or merely 54,200 depending on when you start counting. That's miles short of the pace he needs to keep his original promise, but it's also now shy of even the revised promise he made in October.

Either way, this promise remains Stalled.

Times/Herald staff writer Toluse Olorunnipa contributed to this report.

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Lagging behind job creation promise

During the 2010 campaign, Gov. Rick Scott promised to "create over 700,000 jobs for the state of Florida." Those new jobs would be on top of the jobs state economists predicted would be created naturally, Scott said -- representing a total of 1.7 million jobs in seven years, according to economists' projections. Here's how Scott stands as of January 2012.