Florida is finally pulling more of its own weight in the national recovery.

Federal statistics released Tuesday continue to show the Sunshine State having one of the worst hiring markets in the country, with only five states posting a higher unemployment rate than Florida’s 9.9 percent. It barely budged from November’s 10 percent rate, while 15 states are seeing sharper drops.

But when it comes to hiring, Florida is starting to play catch-up after a lackluster year.

The chart above shows each state’s employment gains or losses since December 2010. Only two states, California and Texas, added more jobs than Florida’s 114,000 gain. But all three are big states, so they’re expected to add payroll slots in large chunks.

To compensate for size, the Economic Time Machine scores states’ hiring performance against their potential. We do that by comparing each state’s share of jobs gained or lost with its share of the national workforce.

As the chart shows, Florida is now hiring above its potential, creating 7 percent of the country’s new jobs despite accounting for just 6 percent of the workforce among the 47 states with expanding employment.

Ranking states by hiring versus hiring potential, Florida claims the No. 6 slot on the ETM scorecard, behind California, Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma.

December’s results mark a big advance for Florida, which barely finished in the Top 30 as the summer wound to a close. In September, Florida produced less than 6 percent of the new jobs while accounting for 6 percent of the workforce, leaving its performance slightly below its hiring weight-class.

The unemployment rate still provides the best score for the labor market, but Florida’s hiring momentum appears to be building.

The Miami Herald’s Economic Time Machine tracks 60 local indicators in an effort to chart South Florida’s recovery from the Great Recession. By comparing current conditions to where they were before the downturn, the ETM attempts to measure how far back the recession set the economy. The answer so far: June 2002. Visit ETM headquarters at miamiherald.com/economic-time-machine for the latest updates.