'No longer God's waiting room': Florida has more jobs than New York for the firs...

Florida is no longer just for grandparents and retirees, according to a new report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In fact, it recently beat New York as the most jobs of any state — a first since the Bureau began to report these numbers in 1982.

Don't miss

• UBS says 61% of millionaire collectors allocate up to 30% of their overall portfolio to this exclusive asset class

• Here's how much the average American 60-year-old holds in retirement savings — how does your nest egg compare?

• 'Hold onto your money': Jeff Bezos issued a financial warning, says you might want to rethink buying a 'new automobile, refrigerator, or whatever' — here are 3 better recession-proof buys

The Sunshine State ended last year with 9,578,500 non-farming industry jobs, compared to 9,576,100 in the Empire State.

While the gap has been closing for a while, it takes some digging to understand why. It’s not as though an obvious guess — pre-retirees riding the pandemic to move south — is a top reason.

“Florida is no longer God’s waiting room,” said Craig Studnicky, chief executive officer of ISG World, a real estate firm that specializes in South Florida luxury residential developments.

“We’re attracting businesses and young people to come from all over the country because of our low taxes and warm weather.”

Florida vs. New York

Studnicky’s wording includes an important clue to who’s driving the growth in Florida: “Young people,” not their grandparents or parents. But if the age demographics are shifting, the pandemic still acted as a prime mover, with remote working the driver.

Pre-COVID, Florida had just over 9 million jobs in the state, compared to the 9.9 million in New York. Yet with unprecedented remote work options, the reasoning among many amounted to this: Why trudge to a cubicle in a biting blizzard when you can do the same job in flip-flops from a beach cabana?

And the southern migration doesn’t look likely to slow anytime soon. New York continues to struggle with its post-COVID recovery, surging crime rates in the Big Apple, and soaring inflation, interest rates and taxes. In fact, more than 64,500 former New Yorkers left for Florida last year alone, according to analysis of Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles data done by the New York Post.