Economy
Florida’s Job Market Keeps Slipping—But Pensacola Is Holding Its Ground
The state shed 36,700 jobs over the past year while unemployment climbed to 4.6%. Escambia and Santa Rosa counties tracked the statewide decline—yet the Pensacola metro was one of only nine in Florida to actually gain jobs.
Florida’s labor market continued to soften in February 2026. The state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate edged up to 4.6%—a full percentage point above February 2025’s 3.6% and above the national rate of 4.4%, behind the headline number: 516,000 jobless Floridians in a workforce of 11.14 million.
Total nonfarm employment barely budged month-to-month, sitting at 9,969,200 jobs—but the year-over-year picture is rougher. Florida shed 36,700 jobs over the past twelve months, a 0.4% decline, while the U.S. as a whole added jobs at a 0.1% pace. The state is moving in the opposite direction from the national trend.
Only One Sector Is Growing
Nine of Florida’s ten major industry sectors lost jobs year-over-year. The lone bright spot: education and health services, which added 35,500 positions—a 2.2% gain. Everything else contracted.
The steepest percentage decline came from the federal government sector, down 7.5%—that’s 12,300 jobs gone statewide in a single year. Professional and business services shed 12,100 jobs, government overall lost 11,100, and leisure and hospitality dropped 10,300. Trade, transportation, and utilities fell by 9,100.
The federal government sector saw the steepest percentage loss of any industry in Florida—down 7.5%, or 12,300 jobs, in a single year.
For Northwest Florida, that federal employment figure is the one to watch. The Pensacola region is home to NAS Pensacola, Hurlburt Field, and Eglin Air Force Base—all of which support significant civilian federal payrolls. If that contraction is continuing into spring, the local impact could be disproportionate.
Escambia and Santa Rosa: Rising Unemployment, Nearly Flat Job Counts
Locally, both counties saw unemployment rates jump roughly 1.5 percentage points year-over-year—matching, almost precisely, the broader statewide trend.
| Escambia County | Feb 2026 | Jan 2026 | Feb 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Labor Force | 149,234 | 148,226 | 146,789 |
| Employed | 141,267 | 140,033 | 141,235 |
| Unemployed | 7,967 | 8,193 | 5,554 |
| Unemployment Rate | 5.3% | 5.5% | 3.8% |
Escambia’s 5.3% rate ranked 34th highest among Florida’s 67 counties—above the state’s not-seasonally-adjusted average of 4.8%. Year-over-year, the county added just 32 jobs while the number of unemployed residents rose by more than 2,400.
| Santa Rosa County | Feb 2026 | Jan 2026 | Feb 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Labor Force | 91,781 | 91,086 | 90,408 |
| Employed | 87,128 | 86,296 | 87,141 |
| Unemployed | 4,653 | 4,790 | 3,267 |
| Unemployment Rate | 5.1% | 5.3% | 3.6% |
Santa Rosa came in at 5.1%, ranking 43rd highest statewide. The county effectively lost 13 jobs year-over-year—essentially flat employment—while unemployment rose by nearly 1,400 people, reflecting a growing labor force absorbing fewer new positions.
The Pensacola MSA’s Silver Lining
Here’s where the local picture diverges from the statewide gloom: the Pensacola-Ferry Pass-Brent MSA ranked 12th lowest for unemployment among Florida’s 25 metro areas at 5.2%, and it added 1,100 jobs year-over-year—a 0.5% gain. Only eight other metros in the state can say the same. The heaviest losses were concentrated in South Florida: West Palm Beach (-10,500 jobs), Fort Lauderdale (-9,400 jobs), and Cape Coral-Fort Myers (-4,600 jobs).
A rising unemployment rate alongside job gains can sometimes reflect more people entering the labor force—a sign of economic confidence, not distress.
That dynamic may partly explain why the county-level unemployment rates in Escambia and Santa Rosa are rising even as the broader metro gains jobs. A growing labor force—more people actively seeking work—can push the unemployment rate up even when the underlying economy is adding jobs. That’s a fundamentally different story than one where employers are cutting, and workers are being sidelined.
Is It Also a Skills Mismatch?
There’s another explanation worth considering: structural unemployment driven by a mismatch between available workers and available jobs. The one sector adding jobs statewide—education and health services—requires specific credentials and training. The sectors shedding workers—administrative services, hospitality, retail, construction—employ people whose skills don’t easily transfer into a healthcare exam room or a school.
The Pensacola region carries an additional wrinkle. The large military community brings a steady supply of transitioning veterans and military spouses who often face credential recognition barriers or have skill sets that don’t map cleanly onto civilian job postings. That’s a structural challenge unique to heavily military markets—one that shows up as persistent unemployment even in a relatively healthy local economy.
Bottom Line
The increase in unemployment across Escambia and Santa Rosa is real and worth watching, but it doesn’t yet signal a local economic crisis. Both counties are tracking the statewide increase, not dramatically underperforming it, and the Pensacola metro remains one of the few in Florida that is actually adding jobs.
- The bigger risk on the horizon is what continued federal workforce reductions could mean for a region whose economy is deeply tied to military and defense employment. That story is still unfolding.
