PANAMA CITY — A hefty tourism economy weighed Bay County down in a recent study that ranked Florida communities based on workforce education and skills.
Conducted by the University of West Florida’s Haas Center for Business Research & Economic Development, the study weighed communities using a “Jobs Skills Index” compiled from employment and wage data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, as well as cost of living and overall attractiveness of an area.
The study showed the Panama City-Lynn Haven-Panama City Beach metropolitan area had a harder time attracting and retaining skilled workers, ranking 15th out of the 22 metros analyzed by economists, and lower than both the state and national averages.
“Areas with lots of retirees and lots of tourists tended to score low,” said Haas Center director Rick Harper. “Areas with a lot of business and education tended to score high.”
The Tallahassee metro area ranked highest on the list, largely due to its high rate of state employees and number of major colleges and universities. Other Northwest Florida areas like Crestview-Fort Walton Beach-Destin fared better than Panama City, ranking ninth, while the Pensacola-Ferry Pass-Brent metro area was in the middle of the pack at 11th.
Although the data analyzed was from 2009 through 2011, Harper said he believes the numbers still hold true. While the federal data is highly reliable, it does come out with a lag.
“Economic structure of an area doesn’t change very rapidly,” he said. “You’re not going to see Panama City go from a tourist hot spot to a manufacturing hub overnight.”
As communities across the state compete to attract high-wage, high-skilled jobs, Harper said the analysis provides an important snapshot of how certain areas measure up and what can be done to improve.
“To me, as a policy analyst, the most important thing is to make sure kids going into elementary school ... that they come to kindergarten ready to learn,” Harper said. “Early childhood education, and I think scholars agree, is very important. The moral of the story is make sure you’re getting good outcomes from your schools.”
The UWF team also weighed Florida against other states in the nation and found it also lags in attracting and retaining skilled workers, ranking the Sunshine State 39th out of 50.
Becca Hardin, president of the Bay County Economic Development Alliance, said workforce is critical in attracting new business projects to a community.
“From a fundamental standpoint, we’re never going to be at the table to negotiate a deal ... unless we can prove to a client that we have the workforce to meet their needs,” Hardin said. “It’s very critical to what we do.”
Although community leaders have long pegged the area as lacking a skilled workforce, Hardin, who took over the organization last fall, said the issue is not as severe as she was expecting.
“That’s something this community has placed an emphasis on,” she said, citing initiatives recently launched by education and workforce officials to bridge the gap. “Every community has a workforce issue. There are a lot of assets in this community that set us apart from the competition. Those are some the things we’re trying to highlight.”
Despite Bay County’s low ranking on the Job Skills Index, Larry Burton, franchise owner at Panama City employment agency Snelling Staffing Services, said he has seen the local economy level out in recent years.
“Five years ago, everything was just temporary employees,” Burton said. “In the last two years we’ve done an awful lot more in our headhunting and recruiting side ... to go out and find exceptional talent.”
As one of the area’s only full-service employment agencies, Snelling Staffing Services is responsible for recruiting for many of the area’s high-skilled technical positions. Over the last five years, Burton said Snelling has seen a greater demand for high-wage positions, but has not had a problem with finding local talent, citing the two military bases as huge assets to the workforce.
“We’ve had no trouble filling the highly technical or college degree jobs that come in,” Burton said. “Probably 98 percent of all our jobs are going to be filled locally.”