For the past year, the country has become familiar with economic failure.
But Alachua County may be slowly emerging from the wreckage.
According to a report from the Florida Agency for Work Innovation, Alachua County's unemployment rate has fallen a second consecutive month from 7.2 percent in August to 7.1 percent in September.
In the past month, 5,100 jobs have become available in the Gainesville metropolitan area, which includes Alachua and Gilchrist counties.
Rebecca Rust, the agency's chief economist, said the figures have much to do with the relatively high proportion of government employment in the area, which includes local education and universities.
According to Rust, state government positions make up 3,500 of the 5,100 new positions, something she attributes to students returning to school in the fall.
"Although government isn't completely recession-proof, it tends to be more stable than other industries during weak economic times," she wrote in an e-mail.
Out of the 67 counties in Florida, Alachua County had the fourth-lowest unemployment rate after Liberty, Walton and Monroe counties.
The statewide economic forecast, however, looks grim. Florida's unemployment rate is 11 percent - the highest rate since October 1975, when the rate was also 11 percent. Out of a labor force of 9,193,000, more than 1 million remain jobless, according to the report.
Rust said the state's health industry is the only major industry in the state that is gaining jobs, which can be attributed to an aging population and the need for health care.
Other industries aren't doing as well. The construction industry suffered a loss of 14,300 jobs between August and September.
Mark Rush, an economics professor at UF, said construction industry's malaise is due to the side effects of the housing market collapse.
Rush agrees with Rust's assertion that governmental presence has had a profound impact on Alachua County's economic stability. Although he says he wouldn't be surprised to see the national unemployment rate, which currently sits at 9.5 percent, hit 10 percent, he believes that it will fall below 9 percent by next year.
"It's no longer a case of 'I've fallen and I can't get up,'" he said. "It's now a case of 'I've fallen and I'm starting to get up.'"
