Labor Day 2011: Unemployment Still Plagues Floridians
Monday, September 5, 2011
By: Rick Stone

Sept. 05, 2011 | WMFE - Labor Day 2011 finds our state nearly a million jobs short of where it should be. Economic experts agree it could be at least six years away before the state's employment situation is back to a healthy level.

Allen Williams is in a job fair line to ask for work building the new Miami Art Museum. An expert concrete finisher with 20 years experience, he's one of  about 700 skilled tradesman applying for maybe175 jobs. He's doing what he's always done, working one job till it’s done and then moving on to another one. But the moves have gotten a lot longer since the recession.

“Between jobs has really extended.” Williams said. “ Before it was probably a week or so. now it’s months between jobs. Jobs are not coming around as fast as they used to.”

Housing was overheated before the crash and construction employment was unsustainably high.  Hundreds of thousands lost their jobs in the crash. And while the economy may improve and create jobs for others, economist Sean Snaith says it won't help skilled workers like Allen Williams.  “Being a carpenter is not going to prepare you for a job in the health care industry.” Snaith said. “That’s where jobs are being created.”

It's one of the reasons that economic recovery and employment seem so disconnected. The crash changed things in ways that don't point to solutions. At Florida International University's Institute on Social and Economic Policy, researcher Emily Eisenhauer said it's left the state neck deep in a jobs deficit. “We need almost a million more jobs in the state to get back to that level of employment. “ Eisenhauer said. “That means the economy is underperforming.

Or at least, performing unevenly. There was modest job growth at the beginning of the year. That stopped. In July, Florida lost 22-thousand jobs. Economist Snaith, who runs the Institute for Economic Competitiveness at the University of Central Florida, said recovery from our 10.7% unemployment rate will be slow. “We're talking several years before we get back to where we were prior to the recession.” Snaith said. “The unemployment rate is going to remain high. I don’t think it gets below 10% until next year.”

How many years to full recovery? Assuming a state job creation rate of 10,500 a month,  the pre-recession rate adjusted for population growth,  many agree the job deficit would disappear in the spring of 2017.

Back at the job fair in Miami, the museum job and other public private projects like the port tunnel and the Marlins stadium are either a glimpse of the future or just little moments of economic nostalgia. Project engineer Laurie King greets the applicants, hands them their application forms and savors this rare chance to offer work.

“It’s a lovely feeling, it really is.” King said.  “Especially because construction has had its hiccups in this area of the country so it's nice to be able to give so many talented people an opportunity.”