TALLAHASSEE — Florida’s unemployment rate inched up to 3.8% in August, after holding steady at 3.7% since April, according to a report released Friday by the state Department of Commerce.

The August rate represented 424,000 Floridians qualified as unemployed, up 7,000 from July. The civilian labor force in August of 11.196 million was unchanged from a month earlier. The unemployment rate in August 2024 was 3.4%.

Jimmy Heckman, the Department of Commerce’s chief of workforce statistics and economic research, said last month’s rate increase was tied to people searching for work after entering or reentering the labor force.

“The number of people that say that they’re unemployed because they lost their jobs is actually down as a share of the number of unemployed people in the state,” Heckma

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