Welcome to

After three straight months of no movement, Florida’s unemployment rate has fallen slightly. The rate, announced today, is 10.6, down from 10.7 a month ago. As Whitney Ray tells us, the decline comes as the governor looks overseas for new job opportunities.

Governor Rick Scott boarded a plane to Brazil Thursday hoping to make deals to grow Florida’s economy.

“There is a lot of technology that is growing there so I would like them to invest in Florida,” said Scott Thursday.

On the phone with reporters Friday, Scott delivered some good economic news… the state’s unemployment rate declined slightly.

“No one can take full credit for this, but Florida is on the right track thanks to the clever efforts of the Florida legislature who last session passed business tax cuts,” said Scott by phone Friday.

For three months the state’s jobless rate was stuck at 10.7 percent.

Now it’s down point one percentage point to 10.6 percent, partly because the state added 23-thousand jobs in September.

Department of Economic Opportunity Chief Economist Rebecca Rust says Florida’s job growth is out pacing the nation’s.

“Florida has the largest over the month job gain in the nation from August to September,” said Rust.

But the celebration may be short lived… The recovery is slow and economists predict the unemployment rate will drop again before years end. Economist expected the unemployment rate to rise to 11 percent by January and then drop back to its current level by the end of 2012.