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Where did the jobs go?
By KRIS HUNDLEY, Times Staff Writer Just a few weeks ago, at the opening of a Coca-Cola facility in Brandon, Gov. Jeb Bush credited remarkable job growth in the Tampa Bay area for helping Florida weather the economic downturn. In December alone, the area was said to have created 40,100 new jobs, making it perhaps the strongest job market in the nation. Now it turns out the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area wasn't so impervious to economic conditions after all. After revising its data to reflect tax records, the state now says the bay area lost 4,200 jobs in December. In January, another 3,200 jobs disappeared locally compared with the same month a year earlier, ranking second only to Orlando, where 11,000 positions bit the dust. The biggest job generator in the state in January turns out to be the Sarasota-Bradenton area, which netted 8,000 new jobs compared with a year earlier. The Tampa Bay area's embarrassing demotion -- from a sizzling hot market to one that's barely maintaining its job base -- is the result of a revision by the state's Agency for Workforce Innovation. Rebecca Rust, economist for labor market statistics with the agency, said the downward revision was expected. "The exact same thing happened 10 years ago when we had a recession," Rust said. "We had been letting the governor's office know that this was happening and trying to caution people from feeling too wonderful about the economy in Florida. Other states have been having the same problem." The governor's office did not return a call seeking comment on the new data. The problem is that the Tampa Bay area's seemingly stunning job growth data was based on information from a sampling of mostly large local employers. "They weren't the ones doing the layoffs," Rust said. "It turns out it was the small companies doing the layoffs." The figures were revised downward after the agency looked at a more comprehensive and reliable source: what each employer actually paid in unemployment tax per employee. Rust's department found that less tax had been paid than expected, reflecting fewer employees on companies' payrolls, leading to the downward revision. Rust said statisticians also look at trends over time when they estimate job creation rates, and trends had been strong during a record bull stock market. Fallout from Sept. 11 also skewed the projections. "Statistical procedures would tell you something like Sept. 11 won't happen," Rust said. "We couldn't smooth that one out." If it's any consolation, Rust said long-term projections of job growth in the Tampa Bay area are still positive. "The area reflected more of the downturn than we could see early, but it's going to come back," she said. "We expect the recovery to be reflected by midyear." Bolstering Rust's optimism were figures released by the state Friday that showed the unemployment rate dropped in January to 5.2 percent, down 0.8 percentage points from December. January's rate was still up from a year ago, however, when unemployment was 3.9 percent. Unemployment in the Tampa Bay area was 4.6 percent in January, compared with 4.4 percent in December and 3.2 percent a year ago. Economists at the University of Florida chimed in Friday with a warning that the consumer won't be pulling us out of this recession. According to UF's monthly consumer confidence poll, consumers have been shaken by the Enron scandal and what it means for investments. Said Chris McCarty, director of UF's Bureau of Economic and Business Research, "If we are coming out of the recession, we should plan for a long and slow recovery." -- Kris Hundley can be reached at hundley@sptimes.com or (727)892-2996.
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From the Times Business report
From the AP
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