The role of Gov. Rick Scott’s jobs czar is fast becoming one of Florida’s high-turnover careers — with Hunting Deutsch’s resignation Tuesday coming less than a year since his predecessor, Doug Darling also stepped down.

Deutsch quit the Department of Economic Opportunity following reports by the Florida Current, an online news service, that he had received $275-a-week in unemployment benefits for 20 months after losing his banking job when the institution failed.

During the time Deutsch collected between September 2009 and May 2011 he traveled in Europe even though state law requires that those receiving benefits be available for work.

In resigning, effective Dec. 14, Deutsch told Scott the “current media focus on my personal matters (was) a distraction to the agency and your administration and believe it best for me to leave.” Deutsch earned $140,000-a-year in the job.

Scott has made job creation his signature issue.

But he has struggled to keep someone in the executive director’s post at DEO, which now has a turnover rate rivaling that of the hospitality industry, one of the state’s most frequent job-changing careers.  Darling left in January after feuding with then-Scott chief-of-staff Steve MacNamara.

Scott said, “Hunt did the right thing by resigning from DEO. It is important that nothing interfere with our mission to create more jobs and opportunities for Florida families.”

The former head of Florida’s jobs’ agency has announced her resignation, the latest departure from the new Department of Economic Opportunity created by Gov. Rick Scott.

Cynthia Lorenzo, chief operating officer of DEO, said she was leaving July 6 to spend more time caring for her two young sons. Lorenzo had been head of the former Agency for Workforce Innovation under ex-Gov. Charlie Crist, and continued in that role in the early months of Scott’s administration.

Scott, however, got the Legislature to reconstitute AWI as the new Department of Economic Opportunity, naming Doug Darling as the jobs’ agency’s head. Darling lasted six months — exiting soon after he acknowledged that Florida over the years had paid tens of millions of dollars to lure companies to the state for jobs that were never created.

Lorenzo briefly served as DEO’s interim director after Darling left. Hunting Deutsch, is the current executive director.

Florida’s unemployment rate fell to 8.7 percent in April, it’s lowest level in three years. But the state’s unemployment compensation system — recently renamed ‘reemployment assistance’ — is being investigated by the U.S. Labor Department following a complaint by workers’ organizations that claim the state’s new online system of filing for benefits creates too many hurdles for out-of-work Floridians.

Critics have said frustration with the system may be aiding Scott’s goal of reducing unemployment. Some workers may abandon their job search or just leave the state, falling out of Florida’s labor market.

Unemployment benefits are paid by employers, and the changes approved in 2011 were pushed hard by the state’s largest business associations.

State officials say the changes have saved businesses millions of dollars and have helped spur Florida’s job growth.