Non-farm jobs took a slight uptick over the 12-month period ending in June in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers area. During that time, jobs increased by .7 percent. But that lags behind national and state increases of 1.1 percent and 1.4 percent respectively, according to data released by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
For the same period, the Naples-Marco Island metro area came in last among the Southwest Florida region’s metro areas in job growth. Total non-farm employment there fell by .4 percent.
Conversely, the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro area led others in the region with a 1 percent year-over-year nonfarm payroll employment growth.
The mining, logging and construction sector in Cape Coral-Fort Myers saw an increase of 2.6 percent, gaining about 1,100 jobs over the year ending June 2025.
Numbers were down for Cape Coral-Fort Myers in the leisure and hospitality sector. Year-over-year change was down 5.3 percent. Punta Gorda experienced a 5.6 percent decrease this past year; Naples-Marco Island jobs dropped 4.5 percent. The drop-off was less severe in North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, where jobs in leisure and hospitality were down 2.9 percent. Overall statewide, leisure jobs grew by 1.5 percent over the past 12 months.
Health care and social assistance jobs in the state grew the most year-over-year at 2.9 percent, followed by professional, scientific and technical services at 2 percent growth and finally leisure and hospitality at 1.5 percent.
The bottom three sectors of job growth in percentage over the past year in Florida were in non-durable goods (down 1 percent), federal government (down .1 percent), and manufacturing (down .2 percent).
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