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Can we at least agree we're all in Florida?

As for consensus on the state of the area's work force, traffic and home prices, forget it.

By JAMES THORNER
Published September 21, 2006

Qualified workers are plentiful in the Tampa Bay area. And they're thin on the ground.

The region's traffic is a nightmare - and not so bad.

Local housing costs are deal breakers. Or they're a welcome respite from nosebleed home prices in California.

Hey, can anybody agree here?

Wednesday morning's Wachovia/University of South Florida Community Forum about Tampa Bay area business provided a broad, if unfocused, look at economic trends.

Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio started the breakfast meeting at the Wyndham Westshore in Tampa by labeling traffic the region's biggest growth choker. She pitched an integrated light rail/bus system so that the Tampa Bay area can be "unstoppable as a region for economic growth."

It wasn't long before another speaker, Stephen Tutwiler of the headhunting firm Sterling Management Resources, offered a contradictory message.

From the perspective of commuters in New York, Washington and Boston, Tampa is freewheeling. "There's no traffic here," Tutwiler said before conceding a commuter rail system was a good idea.

But then it was Tutwiler's message that got overturned. Not long after he cited the region's 3.4 percent unemployment rate as a "tremendous challenge" to finding qualified workers, three business executives described fairly trouble-free employee searches.

John Faith of Depository Trust and Clearing Corp., which moved last year into New Tampa's Highwoods Preserve, hired 200 people locally to join 300 the company transferred from New York.

Scott Latimer of Humana, which manages the new Medicare drug plan, announced it will hire an additional 250 for its call center in Tampa's NetPark by the end of the year. The company already hired about 500 at the call center and in customer service.

"The pool of talent is here in Tampa," Latimer said, his comment backed up by an executive from PricewaterhouseCoopers, which employs 1,500 in the area.

Stu Rogel, head of the Tampa Bay Partnership, highlighted a regional economic scorecard on which Tampa ranked last in housing affordability. It has become a common refrain that housing prices repel potential employees from moving here.

But Tutwiler said upper- and mid-level managers are pouring into Tampa and fueling construction of more expensive homes.

He mentioned companies from places such as Sacramento, Calif., that conclude the Tampa Bay area is a quality-of-life winner.

And they can't get over one fact of Florida living: The houses sure are cheap here.

James Thorner can be reached at thorner@sptimes.com or 813 226-3313.

[Last modified September 21, 2006, 10:00:20]