South Florida’s job market showed a clear split in the latest metro unemployment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach area remained stronger than the national average, while Port St. Lucie and the Sebastian-Vero Beach area posted noticeably higher jobless rates in February. The national unemployment rate was 4.7 percent, not seasonally adjusted.
The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro area posted a 3.8 percent unemployment rate in February 2026, up from 3.0 percent a year earlier. That means the region is still below the U.S. rate, but the labor market has cooled compared with last February. BLS said unemployment rates were higher than a year earlier in 236 of 387 metro areas nationwide, and South Florida’s largest metro was part of that broader trend.
North of the tri-county area, the picture was weaker. Port St. Lucie’s unemployment rate rose to 5.4 percent in February from 3.9 percent a year earlier. The Sebastian-Vero Beach-West Vero Corridor metro area climbed to 5.8 percent from 4.1 percent a year earlier. Both markets were above the national rate and well above the Miami-area figure, signaling more strain along the Treasure Coast than in the broader South Florida metro…