Jobs are plentiful; quality not so much
A university analysis shows Florida ranks nearly last in job quality.
By KRIS HUNDLEY
Published November 17, 2005
Despite low unemployment, strong job creation and continued efforts to upgrade the quality of new jobs, Florida still lags behind 80 percent of the nation when it comes to the overall workplace environment.
And though work is plentiful in the state, the quality of the jobs ranked among the worst in the country, ahead of only Arkansas and New Mexico.
Those are among the conclusions of a group of University of Massachusetts economists who have created a new, more comprehensive method for analyzing a state's employment picture. According to the data, the picture in Florida is not particularly sunny.
Overall, the state tied with North Carolina for 40th place among all states and the District of Columbia using the new workplace environment index compiled by the Political Economy Research Institute at UMass in Amherst.
Ranked at the top are Delaware, followed by New Hampshire, Minnesota and Vermont. Scraping the bottom of the list are Utah, Arkansas, Texas and, in last place, Louisiana.
Bruce Nissen, director of the research institute on social and economic policy at Miami's Florida International University, said the index accurately captures both the strengths and weaknesses of the state's employment market.
"It pinpoints where Florida has been doing well, which is in job creation," Nissen said. "And where we've been doing terribly, which is in the justice and quality of jobs which pay poorly, leading to an inequitable distribution of the fruits of labor."
A spokesman for the Florida Office of Tourism, Trade and Economic Development said Gov. Jeb Bush, who is now on a trade mission to Germany and Switzerland, is well aware of Florida's need for more high-wage, high-value jobs.
"We have identified key industries ... that offer high-wage jobs," said Scott Openshaw, naming life sciences, information technology and aerospace among the targeted categories. "We are aggressively pursuing these industries, and are making progress."
Openshaw also noted that Florida leads the nation in new job creation and has a historically low jobless rate of 3.5 percent. In September, the state's employment grew by 277,700 jobs over the year, at a rate of 3.7 percent, more than twice the national rate.
The new UMass index includes several of those statistics in a compilation of 11 data sets covering three categories.
Job opportunities were calculated using 2004 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data on unemployment rates, rates of involuntary part-time workers and long-term unemployed. In this category, Florida did well, ranking 15th nationwide. The state's rank plummeted, however, when job quality was analyzed based on average wages and the percent of workers who receive health and retirement benefits. In that category, Florida was No. 49.
Workplace fairness was determined by compiling data on the percent of workers earning less than 50 percent of the national average, pay equity among men and women and the state's minimum wage. Two additional criteria quantified employees' ability to organize in the workplace: public employees' collective bargaining rights and whether states have "right to work" laws.
Florida ranked 36th in workplace fairness.
Robert Pollin, a UMass economics professor and one of the study's authors, said the findings showed a positive correlation between states that had a higher index and strong economic growth.
"There's a general tendency that states that do better by their workers tend to grow," he said. "You're not going to stop growing fast if you raise work standards."
Similar correlations cannot be drawn between a state's workplace index and the rate of job growth or business start-ups, he said.
And though the workplace in Delaware and other top-ranked states might look good statistically, Pollin doubts it will drive people to those states.
"Where you locate is a lot more complicated than one indicator," he said. "Though it might be useful in terms of knowing what the opportunities are in different places."
Pollin said Florida's ranking should improve next year because of the increase in the minimum wage, which went into effect in May. Voters overwhelmingly approved a $1 increase to the federal minimum wage, raising it to $6.15. An automatic cost-of-living increase will raise the wage to $6.40 in January.
Pollin speculated that strong economic growth and job creation in states like Florida and Nevada, which ranked No. 42 in the study, could be driven by factors not considered by the index.
"Part of what's driving growth there is the real estate boom and population boom," Pollin said. "You can have those things occur independent of whether the wages are decent in the workplace."
Nissen, the FIU labor studies professor, said Florida's economy has been strengthened by a base of wealthy retirees and a steady influx of workers willing to accept low wages in exchange for good weather.
"That leads to vast inequality, poor treatment and poverty, and we have a lot of that in Florida," Nissen said. "If you say the economy is doing well, but the people aren't, something is wrong."
Kris Hundley can be reached at hundley@sptimes.com or 727 892-2996.