Tampa considered fourth-hottest job market in U.S.: Report
TAMPA - Tampa has the fourth-hottest job market in the U.S., according to a Wall Street Journal report released this week.
The Journal looked at factors including labor force size, participation, wage growth and the unemployment rate, which was about 3 percent in Tampa Bay, according to federal data.
"We've had a great favorable economy here in many different ways and everybody wants to be here. And we've got a lot of new ideas turning. We've got a lot of new opportunity," said Yvonne Fry, CEO of Workforce Development Partners, a nonprofit that held a Future Career Academy hiring event at the Tampa Convention Center Tuesday. "We have health care [companies], that's probably top of the list. We've got a lot in construction. We've got a lot in financial services."
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The Journal ranked four Florida cities in the top six hottest job markets: Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa and Miami.
According to employers, Tampa's exploding population has been the driving force been a job market boom in several industries.
"With that population exploding, everything else has to follow it from schools to hospitals to supermarkets to roadways. So it's a big snowball effect," said Tito Feliciano, with B&I Contractors. "There's a lack of manpower for the amount of work that's out there here in Tampa Bay alone. You can't drive more than a mile without seeing a crane."
Tampa and Miami were first and second in wage growth, according to the Journal's report. The Tampa region also added about 12,000 jobs in the last year, federal data shows.