Florida had an estimated 6,145 unemployment claims last week, a number slightly above the pace before Hurricane Ian hit Southwest Florida.
A report released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Labor said the 6,145 claims during the week that ended Nov. 19 were up from a revised count of 6,110 claims during the week that ended Nov. 12.
The state hit 14,934 claims the week after the Category 4 Hurricane Ian made landfall Sept. 28 in Lee and Charlotte counties.
The state has had an estimated 63,082 claims in the seven weeks since the storm, an average of 9,012 a week. In the seven weeks before Ian, Florida averaged 5,606 new claims.
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The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity on Friday said the state had a 2.7 percent unemployment rate in October, up from a historic low of 2.5 percent in September.
The October numbers showed an estimated 285,000 Floridians qualified as unemployed from a workforce of 10.75 million. Nationally, 240,000 new claims were filed last week, an increase of 17,000 from the previous week.
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