Oct. 16--TAMPA -- Here's a milestone Florida didn't want to reach: the number of jobless people in the state now tops 1 million.

New figures released Friday by the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation estimate the number of unemployed people in Florida at 1,012,000. That's out of a labor force of about 9.2 million.

It marks the first time Florida has topped 1 million unemployed people this recession and it helped bump Florida's unemployment rate up to 11 percent in September. The unemployment rate had been 10.8 percent in August.

The jobless situation is worse in the Tampa Bay area. According to the AWI estimates, 11.7 percent of the Bay area's labor force was out of work in September, an increase over the August jobless rate of 11.4 percent. That represents 154,259 unemployed people out of a local labor force of about 1.3 million.

Both the Bay area and Florida are trailing the nation in the unemployment rate. The U.S. unemployment rate was 9.8 percent in September.

Economists have hinted lately that the recession could be ending, but they have warned that the unemployment rate still could rise. The unemployment rate is considered a "lagging" economic indicator, because companies usually are hesitant to rehire workers until the economy clearly is on the upswing.

Around Florida, the only major industry that added jobs last month was health care and social assistance. Employment in that industry rose by 1.1 percent last month over September 2008.

Reporter Michael Sasso can be reached at (813) 259-7865.

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