Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Better jobs, but fewer of them

Average pay at companies lured here by the chamber in 2006 was $52, 362.

By James Thorner, Times Staff Writer
Published April 28, 2007

Tampa area job recruiters pitch an economic development strategy that can be summed up this way:

More Dom Perignon. Less Ernest & Julio Gallo.

That emphasis on quality-over-quantity paid off handsomely in higher wages among firms recruited by the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce in 2006.

The average job at these targeted companies paid $52, 362 in 2006, a 35 percent improvement over the $38, 796 average wage from 2005's crop of companies.

But for all its help in raising the region's below-national-average pay scale, the emphasis on quality came at a cost: The Tampa chamber enticed only half as many jobs to the region, 1, 545 in 2006 vs. 3, 288 in 2005.

"This was a trend we saw coming. There was no shock, " said Bob Abberger, outgoing chairman of the Committee of 100, the chamber's business recruitment arm.

Abberger's committee released the job figures at an annual chamber banquet Thursday night at Tampa's Pepin Hospitality Center. As job quality was the hot topic, the keynote speaker was Dr. William Dalton, a key player in the formation of M2GEN, the metro area's biggest economic development coup of the past year.

Dalton heads Tampa's H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute. Moffitt partnered with Merck & Co., the world's No. 2 pharmaceutical company with $22-billion-plus in revenues and 60, 000-plus employees, to form M2GEN. The for-profit venture, based in Tampa, promises to inject more than $100-million into the area economy and employ more than 560 directly and indirectly at salaries of about $80, 000.

Moffitt has long dreamed about compiling a massive database of cancer patients, including tumor samples, that could lead to therapies tailored to each person's genetic makeup. Many drug companies expressed interest, Dalton said, but it was Merck that actually pushed a lucrative partnership. The drug company hopes to develop profitable drugs by tapping Moffitt's hoard of clinical and genetic data.

Abberger signed off on his term as head of The Committee of 100 and handed leadership to Roy McCraw of Wachovia Bank.

McCraw listed such regional attractions as the St. Petersburg Grand Prix and Tampa's Outback Bowl and wondered why there wasn't a waiting list of companies trying to relocate to the region.

Talking up the area's quality of life no longer suffices, McCraw said. He urged the chamber crowd to juice up recruiting in an economy predicted to be steady but unspectacular.

"The sunshine alone will not take us there, " McCraw said.

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

At a glance
The chamber lured fewer jobs in 2006 than 2005, but they paid more.

Source: The Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce

[Last modified April 27, 2007, 22:51:47]