After more than a year-and-a-half downward march, Florida’s unemployment mark took an upward bend in July.

The state Department of Economic Opportunity announced an 8.8 percent unemployment rate for July, with approximately 816,000 out of work from the work force of 9.27 million.

The rate is 0.2 percent above where Florida stood in June, but still 1.8 percentage points lower than where the state was in July 2011.

Florida’s seasonally adjusted total nonagricultural employment was 7,331,400 in July 2012, a decrease of 3,300 jobs (less than 0.1 percent) over the month. The number of jobs in the state was up 69,900 over the year, an increase of 1 percent from July 2011. Nationally, the number of jobs was up 1.4 percent over 2011.

More to come.