Aug. 22--So much for popular economic talk of a "jobless recovery" -- the notion that unemployment will remain stubbornly high but flat as we slowly pull out of the longest recession since World War II.

For Florida, this is shaping up as a job-loss recovery, assuming the economy has in fact turned a corner. The state has lost about 400,000 jobs since last August, including 25,200 the last month alone, and the total number of people looking for work is now hovering at 1 million.

While the country's unemployment rate ticked down a notch in July to 9.4 percent, Florida's rate reached 10.7 percent, according to figures released Friday. That matches the upwardly revised figure of 10.7 percent for June, the highest rate in 34 years.

In the Tampa Bay area, unemployment rose slightly to 11.3 percent.

The list of hardest-hit industries has shifted. A dryup in construction jobs paved the way into the recession, but that was later supplanted by professional and business services. The latest report shows a new No. 1 in industry losses: transportation and utilities shed 99,100 jobs year over year, in part reflecting employment drops at auto dealers and parts shops.

A Florida economists' panel has predicted unemployment will peak at 11 percent and gradually recede starting in the second quarter of 2010.

The good news is that Florida's free fall appears to have ended, even if unemployment rises a bit more.

"People are still losing their jobs (but) the rate of decline has lessened. ... The deterioration in the job market has moderated," Rebecca Rust, chief economist with the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation, said in a conference call Friday.

The bad news: Rust doesn't expect Florida will see a more comfortable unemployment rate below 6 percent again until 2018.

In recent months, there have been growing signs nationally that the recession is ending, from an uptick in home sales to improved corporate profits. At the Federal Reserve's annual conference Friday in Wyoming, Chairman Ben Bernanke declared the country is on the verge of its long-awaited recovery. "The prospects for a return to growth in the near term appear good," he said.

On the same day as Bernanke's speech, 26 states reported increases in unemployment in July. (Michigan's unemployment rate actually dropped two-tenths of a point but remained the highest at 15 percent).

In most recessions, unemployment continues to rise after a recovery is well under way. That's because many unemployed who had been sitting on the sidelines try to re-enter the work force when companies start hiring. That increases competition and drives up unemployment.