Healthcare hiring didn’t come through for South Florida last month. The latest jobs number show one of the largest industries in the region has shifted into a new, slower gear, with Broward and Miami-Dade showing losses in a sector that was expanding even during the darkest days of the 2007-09 recession. It was a rare loss of healthcare jobs in the region, as the national Affordable Care Act roils the industry.

There’s a chance the reversal will be temporary, but the change helped hand Miami-Dade yet another weak employment report in 2013. While the unemployment rate backed off its flirtation with 10 percent, the internal numbers were discouraging. A survey of households found a slight drop in both employment and job seekers, a combination that allowed Miami-Dade’s unemployment rate to drop from 9.9 percent in March to 9.6 percent in April.

“The report should raise concerns,” Robert Cruz, chief economist for Miami-Dade County, said of the employment numbers released Friday morning. He called them “weak and disappointing,” adding: “The local labor market has made virtually no progress over the last 12 months.”

A separate survey of businesses found more bad news: Job growth in Miami-Dade hit the slowest pace since 2010, with only 2,200 new payroll positions added compared to the prior year.

In Broward, the numbers were much rosier: Employers added significantly more jobs (15,100) and unemployment dropped from 5.8 percent to 5.6 percent. (The two counties’ unemployment rates aren’t really comparable, since Miami-Dade’s is adjusted for seasonal changes in the economy. It is the only county in Florida large enough to get the extra analysis from the federal Labor Department on the day it releases local jobs reports. Broward will receive a seasonally adjusted rate later in the month.)

Statewide, Florida saw unemployment drop to its lowest level since September 2008. For April, the state saw unemployment of 7.2 percent, down from March’s 7.5 percent level. The drop came thanks to higher employment numbers, though the number of job seekers did drop slightly between March and April.

Healthcare also was a drag in Broward, recording a loss of 500 jobs. It was a modest drop but a major change: Broward’s healthcare industry had added jobs for 59 straight months, stretching back to June 2009. Miami-Dade’s healthcare industry saw a brief hiring decline at the close of 2011, ending a 137-month streak of job gains. Last year brought modest gains, and April’s decline was the first in 13 months.

The reversals in hiring come as the national healthcare law scrambles how providers get reimbursed and how insurance companies can charge customers. Florida hospitals with a heavy load of indigent care, including Miami’s Jackson, are bracing for a steep drop in federal funds as more of the 2009 law takes effect. At the same time, increases in healthcare spending have been leveling off nationwide, cutting into profit potential for providers.

Even so, the decline in healthcare hiring could be a temporary blip. Last year, when the University of Miami and Jackson hospital systems announced layoffs that approached 2,000 positions, the overall South Florida healthcare industry continued posting job growth.

Sean Snaith, an economist at the University of Central Florida, cautioned against reading too much into recent hiring data for healthcare.