Florida Democrats teed-off on Republican Gov. Rick Scott on Friday over July unemployment numbers, which showed the state losing 22,100 jobs that month.

The statewide  jobless rate held steady at 10.7 percent in July from a month earlier. In Palm Beach County, unemployment climbed to 11.2 percent that month, up from 11 percent in June.

Jobs, meanwhile, vanished.

Scott has been boasting of the state’s job creation levels, which had climbed by 85,500 positions since he took office in January. But with July’s drop, that level is down to 64,300 jobs, according to the state’s Agency for Workforce Innovation.

 Earlier this week, he told the Orlando Sentinel editorial board that he was well on his way to making good on his campaign promise of creating 700,000 jobs in seven years — even though he also made it clear to the paper that he was casting his pledge differently than last fall. 

Last fall, Scott promised to add the 700,000 positions on top of what economists forecast as a roughly 1 million additional jobs that will come with Florida’s population growth. Now, Scott said he’s counting every job toward his goal.

But Friday, he had to get out the eraser with July’s shrinkage.

Florida Democratic Party executive director Scott Arceneaux said the decline was “another indication that Rick Scott and the Republicans care more about promoting their Tea Party agenda then creating the jobs they promised and Floridians need.”

When Florida’s unemployment rate dropped in March by its largest margin in eight years, Gov. Rick Scott was quick to grab credit.

Another decline for April — announced Friday — prompted the Republican governor assuring that the state is headed in the right direction. And his policies are helping, Scott added.

“I remain focused on job creation, so it is great news that this trend is continuing in the right direction,” Scott said. “With tax relief for property owners and elimination of taxes on about half of the businesses that currently pay, I believe we are on the path to getting Florida back to work.”

Florida’s 10.8 percent jobless rate is the state’s lowest level since September 2009. It’s down from 11.1 percent in March and includes 996,000 out-of-work, the first time the ranks of the state’s unemployed dropped below 1 million since October 2009, according to Florida’s Agency for Workforce Innovation.

Lawmakers remained divided Wednesday night on efforts to limit unemployment compensation in Florida — with the House reworking a Senate plan linking the number of weeks a jobless worker can collect benefits.

Instead, the House dug-in, mostly — around the plan it approved in the session’s opening week. The House wanted to reduce the state’s current 26 weeks of benefits to 20 — but boosted that by three weeks as the session’s horse-trading entered the homestretch.

“It has a long-term, positive effect on businesses, because it lowers the unemployment taxes,” said Rep. Doug Holder, R-Sarasota.

The Senate has resisted a direct cut in weekly benefits, instead tying the duration of benefits to the state’s unemployment rate. A full, 26-weeks would only be available to those out-of-work when unemployment hit 12 percent. The current 11.1 percent jobless rate would allow for 24 weeks.

The House also supports a sliding scale. But it wants to roll-back the maximum benefits to 23 weeks.

“How does this help the unemployed find jobs?” asked Rep. Joe Gibbons, D-Pembroke Pines.

The bill also demands that those seeking benefits take a skills test aimed at matching them to jobs. It also gives employers more authority to challenge a worker’s bid for benefits, with Florida’s biggest industry organizations saying the current system overly favors those out of work.

Holder, a Sarasota Republican, said he thought his Senate counterpart, Nancy Detert, R-Venice, would meet him on the middle-ground.

“We feel it’s an appropriate compromise,” Holder said.

Florida’s unemployment rate dropped last month by its largest margin in more than eight years, and Gov. Rick Scott was ready Friday to take plenty of credit for the improving economy.

Florida’s March rate stands at 11.1 percent — down from 11.5 percent the month before. Scott also pointed out, “While that number is still too high, that is the lowest unemployment rate we’ve seen in more than a year. And it represents a nearly one percent decrease since I’ve become governor.”

“We’re seeing an encouraging trend…We’re clearly heading in the right direction. But we’ve got a long way to go,” Scott said.

He also used the findings to again push the Legislature to embrace his call for cutting state regulations, reducing the corporate income tax and consolidating job development agencies — and their millions of incentive dollars –under him.

Scott acknowledged that the national unemployment rate — at 8.8 percent, still well below Florida’s — had declined by only one-tenth of one percent since February.

But Scott failed to point out — as state economist Rebecca Rust did after Scott exited his news conference without taking any questions — that the national unemployment rate also has dropped by 1 percent over the past four months.

That basically mirrors Florida’s drop.

Some 43,800 jobs have been added in Florida since Scott took office in January. But have Scott’s policies helped spark that economy?

“We can’t say,” Rust conceded.