The Big Story: Crappy jobs in Tampa Bay
January 14, 2008 at 10:54 am by Wayne GarciaSaturday and Sunday’s SP Times brought plenty more evidence that Tampa Bay is not creating lots of good-paying jobs. This from the Water Cooler column:
The hottest $100,000-plus job markets range from New York and San Francisco to Seattle and Chicago. Tampa and Detroit continue to be among the tightest markets in the 20 markets surveyed.
Detroit. We suck as bad as Detroit. That’s saying something. (The info came from TheLadders.com, a job search website.) Those $100K jobs are competitive, as you might expect:
And which companies do those surveyed most want to work for in the area? Ceridian, L-3 Communications and Wachovia. For every job paying $100,000 or more here, there are on average eight candidates.
From Saturday’s paper, we find that Tampa Bay is stuck at a middling 49th in the Top 100 cities for new job creation:
 Forbes.com has come out with its list of the best cities for jobs in 2008 - based on measures like median income, unemployment, income growth, job growth and cost of living - and no Florida metro areas made the top 25. Then, Florida cities appeared in clusters with Jacksonville, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale at Nos. 26-28, respectively.
The only difference between today and 10 years ago in this area is that at least back then, the chambers and other public officials talked about creating new jobs and diversifying the local economy beyond tourism and construction.
Send to a friend:
January 14th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
The worst part is that the clowns in Tallahassee hawking this Amendment 1 will make this problem abundantly worse for Florida. The real estate market went bust particularly badly in Florida because the high demand on new homes forced the price point beyond what most Floridians could afford, thus leaving us with now worthless, vacant homes on the market.
Is it any wonder that Tampa and Miami rank #1 and #2 respectively on the national lists for vacant properties?!
No property tax cuts will overcome that core problem - lack of higher wage jobs - and in fact will hinder economic development even more in this state.
If portability passes via Amendment 1, imagine what potential employers will have to face when considering moving jobs here. Those thousands of new homeowners coming from Boston, or Cincinnati, or wherever will get hit with the bloated tax bills to offset the fat and happy homesteaders already here. That, at the bare minimum, makes us less competitive and attractive to companies actually interested in bringing high wage jobs here.
Governor Crist claims he is making economic development a huge priority in this year’s budget - but, what he doesn’t tell you is that a great deal of economic development financing occurs at the local government level. How will the counties be able to attract better jobs here, if the state cuts off the nose to spite the face?!
The Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce formally came out an opposed Amendment 1 on Friday because of the damage it poses to real economic development oportunities for Florida. Voters can do the same by voting NO on Amendment 1 anytime bewtween now and January 29th!
January 14th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Actually, it was easier to find a job ten years ago than it is now. If I would have known how bad the job market was going to be I would never have taken a hiatus.
January 14th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Worse than newcomers here facing artificially high, SOH-subsidizing tax bills; small businesses, the real economic engine for new jobs and creative industries, continue to see little to no relief as well and will likewise subsidize folks like me who live in one house for decades. And, of course, it is hard to attract new industries and hot jobs when your education system is perennially 53rd out of 50 states in quality, and Prop 1 takes even more money away from education.
January 14th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Wayne, that’s one reason I dearly hope Hometown Democracy gets on the ballot and passes. The only way the seven dwarfs we have running the county will ever get behind real job-creating industries is if they don’t have real estate and construction as low-hanging fruit. And even then I doubt that most of them (except maybe Sharpe and Ferlita) are smart enough to think their way out of a paper bag or honest enough to admit that they need to.
January 14th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Chris W,
While I certainly have issues with our local government here (and that includes ALL local government, not just the Hillsborough BOCC), Hometown isn’t the answer either. If you go into the other extreme and severly limit the ability to grow, when those homes finally sell and no new ones get built, the prices will again get high as supply will be unable to meet demand.
Plus, comp plan amendments are required for numerous public infrastructure needs. Roads, schools, hospitals, etc. Should people in Ruskin really have the power of an up or down vote that could deny the people in Carrollwood a new hospital, even though the communities are 40 miles apart?! Do we want to subject ourselves to the barrage of political ads that will come every time one must campaign for a new project?! Doesn’t that favor the big developers who can afford to wage a campaign to make sure their issues get passed?!
Growth isn’t a bad thing, so long as its smart growth, a concept unfortunately lost on our local leaders of late. But Hometown brings no growth, and is an extreme action for a problem that could be better addressed in a more logical approach.
What ever happened to us living in a republic that implements representative democracy? If we hate the job government is doing - be it local, state, or federal, we have the power of the vote to remove them, but we have given them the authority to represent us on issues like growth, be it for better or worse.
Hometown Democracy = mob rule. A true democracy is 3 wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. Is that the path we really want to take?
January 14th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Low pating jobs is what the economic developers and chamber SELL in Tampa Bay! No unions and a cheap workforce is their only formula. There is no concern for small business or the hard workers.
January 14th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Eric is 50/50 - the Chambers go after the high wage jobs (ie Merck, Pricewaterhouse, etc…), though in the past low-cost call center jobs dominated, that has changed; economic development in general settles for any jobs (Ikea)
January 14th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Hometown Democracy is the best weapon we have for blasting out the iron triangle of developers, real-estate millionaire wannabes, and bought-and-paid-for politicians that are causing so much build-out in the county. They’re like locusts, except what they eat up is our available open land.
It doesn’t really matter all *that* much if the developers flood the airwaves when they want to build something that violates the comp plan; it’ll just mean that the voters tune them out that much quicker and they waste more of their money (which is fine with me).
Voting out Norman, Hagan, Blair, and the rest of those moral pygmies won’t matter if the county is mostly one solid ugly sprawling housing development stretching from Largo to Plant City and down to Ruskin; by then it’s too late and there’s no way to get the county back the way it was. It’s worse in north Fla where St Joe Company has enormous tracts of undeveloped land and is itching to put up development after development. Once that happens, that land is gone. Kaput. Finis. And then Florida will look like Atlanta, and nobody will want to move down here. So growth will stop, *and* we’ll be living in a giant suburb. Why not stop growth (or slow it waaaay down) now, before the whole state is ruined?
January 14th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
“We is Tampa”
January 15th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Eric,
Incorrect. In fact, the last low paying job landed here (Ikea) was pushed by the City of Tampa, not by the Chamber - and even that’s in dispute because that shrill little witch Linda Saul-Sena isn’t satisfied that its “green” enough. You laugh about the clowns on the BOCC, but its just as bad in the City, and 3x the people laugh back at you!
January 15th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Let’s see, I’ll take a do-nothing(at least they’re doing no evil) and an extremist in the other direction over a group that has systematically endeavored to dismantle civil rights and citizen participation while bulldozing the natural beauty that once was Hillsborough County. People aren’t laughing at the antics of the BOCC they are shaking their heads in shame and disgust.
January 15th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Meanwhile, what good jobs we do have coming in to Hillsborough County go out on the 1-75 corridor, New Tampa, or USF - leaving Tampa denizens with waffle houses, strip clubs, and other places of “high” wage employment - LOL
January 15th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
What good professional corp jobs has the Chamber, Comittee 100, County and others brought into Tampa? They really are disinterested n upsetting the status quo so are not effective. When was the last Price Waterhouse Cooper landed into Tampa?
Or Biotech? That was the buzz two years ago and still the focus.
January 15th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
ummm…M2Gen?! (170 jobs), another 28 bioscience jobs at XCelience
PWC brough 320 jobs here in 2006, MetLife (180 jobs), those were just fractions of the 1800 jobs in 2006 alone (average wage reported $52k, or 57% higher than regional median)
2007 Coca Cola Enterprises (200 jobs - NOT call center, but accounting and services), B&M precision (100 jobs, medical manufacturer).
Its all been in the papers
January 15th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Geoff - we keep hitting the same industry’s and they are mostly the low end. Average income in Hillsborough county is 32K. In Pinellas is is 35K.
Biotech is chasing a fad not planning for a stronger and balanced economy. We are sold as cheap and uneducated workforce without unions, that is why the average income in town is so bad.
January 15th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Eric, you and I agree much more than it may seem. I think Chambers and economic developers in general will always prefer higher wages to lower, but all must work within the confines and parameters in which they’re given.
I think the problem is as much state as it is local. Florida was chugging along in the biotech realm while Bush was Governor (Merck, Scripps, Burnham, Torrey Pines), but the “People’s Governor”, in his infinite to desire to govern by whichever way the winds blow, has decided the real money lies in biofuels and energy - though we have heard zip, zilch, and zero yet as to how he intends to make that happen. It took him 9 months just to appoint an economic development director in his office, so clearly his interest in attracting high wage high skill jobs is not what we once might have thought it to be.
Add to that this sham known as Amendment 1, and Florida becomes an even more ugly and unattractive place for higher educated, higher wage earners.
This state, much like this local community, is a t a crossroads as to whether or not it wants to mature its economy and infrastructure, or remain the low cost retiree backwater it has always been…my fear is the latter continues to set course.
It’s unfortunate that this property tax discussion is more as a result of the general inability for Floridians to afford taxes and homes because of their income levels, and instead of addressing the real issue…Is it any wonder that places like Virginia and Maryland have property taxes as high as we do (and even income taxes) and yet there is considerably less whining, because average wages are double there?!
January 15th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Wayne - I was really hoping the state papers would beat up more on Tallahassee by now. There are so many stories waiting to be written about the clowns in the Legislature. I know the Hillsborough BOCC offers plenty of fodder, but I wodner if CLoafing readers might like more insight on to what’s going on in their state capitol, and a more in depth look at this Clown Prince Governor we were all so enamored with less than a year ago…what say you?!
January 15th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
If they can’t and won’t bring professional good paying jobs, headquarters and a well balanced economy why do they call it “economic development”? Then it is just advertising the way they do it in this town.
January 15th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Geoff — it does seem that our Legislature has been particularly dormant for the past two years (as opposed to the active, but wrongheaded, sessions we had in the bush years) as Rome burned, aided and abetted by Crist, who never shows any muscle or uses political capital. lemme see what we can do during this session along the lines of your suggestion.