Jan. 14, 2022 – Florida Times-Union – What’s the job market like around Jacksonville?
One recent afternoon, dozens of employers staffed terminals for a joint online hiring fair organized by a state-sponsored employment agency, while another firm set up its own fair to fill 200 sales and customer-service jobs and another invited people to a Southside hotel to try to find hires for 500 vacant positions.
“We are interviewing and hiring on the spot,” Allied Universal recruiter Teira Blake said in an announcement of her firm’s event to fill security jobs, booked during the same hours as events by the Jacksonville Transportation Authority and the Military Sealift Command.
“There are a lot of job opportunities,” said Rebecca Livingston, executive vice president for CareerSource Northeast Florida.
Luckily for employers, the number of job-hunters goes up this time of year, too, said Livingston, whose agency works with Florida’s Department of Economic Opportunity to keep First Coast businesses staffed.
Whether they’re just over their jobs and want something different or were working seasonal gigs and need new ways to keep their paychecks coming in the new year, Livingston said January job-hunters are part of her agency’s landscape.
A year ago, after the first holiday season of the pandemic, the number of Jacksonville-area people counted as unemployed based on survey results rose by about 9,300 between December and January.
After months of people walking away from jobs during the Great Resignation, it’s not clear how many people could choose this new year to start their work lives over.
For those who do, CareerSource is running workshops in resume writing, interviewing skills and financial literacy to make realistic plans for work and living.
There are also workshops on jobs in “targeted industries,” the five fields — health care, advanced manufacturing, logistics, finance and information technology — that Northeast Florida officials have prioritized for years as keys to the region’s long-term prosperity.
Those fields include businesses Jacksonville has gotten used to celebrating, like fintech leader FIS and data merchant Dun & Bradstreet, as well as others still working to make names for themselves.
CDL 1000, a Chicago-based firm that emphasizes technology for better trucking-industry and logistics efficiency, said this month it plans to hire more than 100 people in Jacksonville — a big move for a company with only about 200 employees total.
“The Southeast is very important to us,” said Mark Vargas, a part of the firm’s government affairs team who said Jacksonville became a priority as the company, only a few years old, worked on fulfilling a Defense Department service contract.
Vargas said the company, which touts its “smart logistics technology” for increasing the loads trucks carry and cutting time they spend idle, has been hiring drivers and office-based support and sales staff, with an emphasis on military veterans.
In a time when many firms have had trouble finding job candidates, he said his company recruits a lot of people through informal, word-of-mouth contacts.
“Everybody always knows someone or has a mutual friend,” he said.
Some businesses want employees who’ll grow with their companies
Other businesses focus on hiring employees who’ll grow over time with their companies.
“We offer the opportunity for more than just a job; we offer a career with a clear path for development,” a spokesperson for business-service firm Concentrix said in emailed answers to questions about its search for about 200 sales and customer service employees for its Baymeadows Way offices.
Saying “Concentrix’s goal is to create long-lasting careers,” the spokesperson cast the company’s online career fair as a step “to adapt to the needs of prospective candidates, meeting them where they are.”
Finding ways to keep customer-service workers might save headaches down the road.
The job ranked No. 5, just ahead of fast-food worker, on a list of jobs most in demand among Northeast Florida businesses, according to data Livingston compiled from help-wanted postings over the past month.
The top four in-demand jobs, by the way, were retail salespeople, registered nurses, frontline retail supervisors and stockers and order-fillers.
While those are in demand today, the job list looks nothing like the list of industries that grew the most over the past year.
In contrast to the retail-heavy demand now, Livingston said the industries with the strongest job growth-rates for the 12 months ending in November (December’s numbers are still being figured) were in wholesale trade (8.3 percent, 2,200 jobs), leisure and hospitality (7 percent; 5,300 jobs), professional business services (6 percent; 6,800 jobs), mining, logging and construction (6.3 percent; 3,000 jobs) and financial and banking businesses (5.6 percent; 3,900 jobs).
So how does a job-hunter decide where to start looking for a gig that fits their talents and needs?
A calendar of career fairs and workshops, most designed for online participation, is on CareerSource’s website as one way to get started.
“We’re absolutely here to help,” Livingston said.