FYI Miami: June 8, 2023

Bellow are some of the FYIs in this week’s edition. The entire content of this week’s FYIs and Insider sections is available by subscription only. To subscribe click here.

FEWER WORKING, BUT…: The unemployment rate in Miami-Dade County held steady at 1.8% in April, but the county added 200 unemployed persons and lost 8,900 persons from the workforce, leading to a total of 9,100 fewer persons actually at work in April than were working in March, according to figures just released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Still, the 1,387,373 persons in the county’s workforce in April was 26,122 more than in April 2022, and the 1,362,222 persons actually working in April were 36,248 more than the total working in April 2022.

MORE JOBS UNFILLED: While job openings in the nation as a whole were basically unchanged in March from February, they rose by a half percent in Florida to 6.5% of all jobs. The only other locale to see a gain was Washington, DC, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Florida had 671,000 jobs open in March, while the nation as a whole saw a 384,000 decline in open jobs. The bureau defines a job opening as a specific position available that could start work in 30 days for which an employer is actively recruiting.

TORTOLA FLIGHTS BACK: For the first time in four decades American Airlines has started a non-stop flight from Miami International Airport (MIA) to Tortola, the largest of the British Virgin Islands. The new route, which began June 1, makes MIA the only US airport to offer nonstop service to the islands. The three-hour flight is to operate through the summer and then resume in November. Tortola also became the 43rd nonstop Caribbean route at MIA, the leading US airport for flights to Latin America and the Caribbean. MIA enters the summer travel season with year-to-date passenger traffic up nearly 3% over its record-breaking year in 2022, when the airport served 50.7 million travelers. The British Virgin Islands, part of a volcanic archipelago in the Caribbean, is a British overseas territory, comprising four main islands and many smaller ones. It’s known for its reef-lined beaches and as a yachting destination. Tortola is home to the capital, Road Town, and rainforest-filled Sage Mountain National Park.

BOOK ENDS: The Florida Department of Education has scheduled a June 9 workshop to flesh out a process to handle disagreements over local decisions about objections to materials used in school or classroom libraries. The process would involve special magistrates and administrative hearings. The workshop is acting to put into effect new state legislation in which local school boards are required to remove from school library shelves and classrooms any books to which anyone objects based on content they consider unsuitable or pornographic until the school board either agrees with the objection or returns the books to schools.