Year-over-year employment growth in 2025 was revised up to 0.6%, making Orlando the seventh fastest-growing of the 30 most populous regions in the country in 2025.
| ✓ | Revised estimates suggest the Orlando region added 8,800 jobs in 2025. |
| ✓ | Orlando was the seventh fastest-growing large employment center in the U.S., despite a slowdown from 2024. |
| ✓ | The region may be entering a new era of slower job growth, underlining the case for Orlando’s next chapter. |
Orlando’s job growth was more pronounced in 2025 than previously estimated, according to revised data released this week by the Florida Department of Commerce. The region added 8,800 jobs in the 12 months ending December 2025, a significant increase from the 3,700 originally reported. Employment estimates are benchmarked annually based on more complete input data – a process designed to improve the accuracy of the estimates.
Florida’s Fastest-Growing Employment Center
Orlando averaged 44,300 new jobs per year in the 5-year period leading up to the pandemic (2015-2019) and 43,900 per year in the period immediately following (2022-2024). Therefore, the 8,800 new jobs added in 2025 represent a considerable slowdown from both the immediate past and pre-pandemic trends – even if the upward revision brought 5,100 more jobs than first thought.
Loss of momentum in the labor market was felt throughout country in 2025 as the U.S. saw its weakest year of job growth since the pandemic. Job growth slowed from 2024 in all but three of the country’s 30 most populous regions in the U.S., with 14 regions actually recording job losses. Within this context, Orlando’s growth of 0.6% made Orlando the seventh fastest-growing of the 30 most populous regions in the country in 2025. Tampa grew by just 0.2%, while Miami and Jacksonville (which falls outside the top 30) both lost jobs.
The new numbers equate to an average of 24 new jobs per day in 2025. Overall job creation in 2025 was weighed down by weakness in consumer-driven sectors such as retail (-3,900 jobs), accommodation & food services (-700 jobs), and other services (-600), and by businesses pulling back on temporary labor, which drove a contraction in professional & business services (-3,500 jobs). Construction, which is sensitive to both higher interest rates and uncertainty, also recorded a job loss (-800 jobs).
Healthcare and leisure & hospitality were again the region’s two dominant job creators in 2025, each adding more jobs than in 2024. The former remained largely resilient to cyclical headwinds and saw several system expansions in 2025, while the latter appears to have benefited from the opening of Universal’s Epic Universe in May 2025. Orlando’s finance sector continued to outperform national growth rates.
A New Era
Orlando’s more subdued job growth in 2025 mirrors what the Orlando Economic Partnership (OEP) has heard directly from local businesses through our Orlando MSA Business Conditions Survey, powered by OUC. Throughout 2025, businesses reported disciplined hiring as political uncertainty took its toll and structural shifts hit the labor market. In particular, businesses increasingly indicated seeking to do more with less – pursuing growth through innovation and productivity gains rather than recruitment, with the rise of artificial intelligence central to that shift.
As job creation becomes increasingly decoupled from output expansion, slower job growth may simply reflect the new normal. The years of adding 40,000+ jobs per year in Orlando may be behind us – not because the regional economy is faltering, but because the relationship between growth and hiring is fundamentally changing.
Looking Ahead
Despite the slowdown, Orlando remains well-positioned. The region’s labor force continues to expand, unemployment remains low, and the region continues to successfully absorb population growth.
In a slower-growth era, job quality matters more. The Orlando 2045 Regional Vision is our community’s response – positioning Orlando to compete for the high-wage, innovation-driven industries that will define the economy of the next few decades.
For a region whose economic base remains heavily weighted toward consumption, 2025 was a reminder of both our vulnerability and the importance of the work underway. It is the composition, quality, and resilience of the region’s employment base – not the volume of jobs added – that will determine whether Orlando leads the next economy or follows. Slower job growth makes that case more urgent and more compelling than ever.
About Orlando Market Commentaries
Market Commentaries are a series of timely analyses produced by the Orlando Economic Partnership’s Research & Strategy team. Commentaries are typically associated with a major data release or cover areas key to advancing the Partnership’s goal of Broad-based Prosperity®.
