Florida first-time jobless claims see sharp drop for final week of May

New unemployment claims in Florida tumbled significantly to finish off May.

There were 5,167 first-time filings in the state for the week ending May 30, according to figures provided by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). That’s a fall of 803 claims from the week ending May 23, when there were 5,970. It’s the third week in a row that initial filings fell in Florida.

The sharp drop in new claims comes after a turbulent May for the Sunshine State. Initial filings soared for the week ending May 9 after Spirit Airlines shut down operations at the beginning of the month. The commercial carrier had about 4,800 employees in Florida at several hubs. But the company closed due to rising fuel costs, and Spirit could not keep pace with them.

Those layoffs drove new jobless claims over 8,000 in the second week of the month.

The latest data for Florida aligned with the national trend, though the decline across the U.S. was more modest. There were 187,978 new filings in the country for the week ending May 30. But that’s down by only 121 filings from the previous week, or a 0.1% drop.

DOL analysts, factoring in seasonal adjustments, had expected a larger drop in nationwide initial filings. Economists with the agency projected a 5.7% drop in the national number, or about 10,803 fewer initial filings.

While the drop in weekly claims nationally was modest, the year-over-year comparison was more significant. There were 207,512 first-time claims for the comparable week in 2025, noting an annual drop of 19,534 filings.

Meanwhile, Florida’s overall unemployment rate has been steadily rising. April’s jobless rate was 4.8%, according to data from FloridaCommerce, the state’s economic development bureau. That’s the fourth month in a row that the figure has increased.

It’s also the same span of time during which the Florida unemployment rate was higher than the national figure, at 4.3% in April. Before this year, Florida had not had a higher jobless rate than the national rate in half a decade.

FloridaCommerce plans to release May’s unemployment rate within two weeks.