You see them all around — jobs.
Amazon.com, Ikea, St. Johns Town Center area stores and restaurants, Deutsche Bank, corner gas stations and grocery stores. It seems that all need help, in total by the thousands.
That’s likely why the area unemployment rate dropped to 4 percent in May and has fallen since.
Since 1990, Jacksonville’s metro area unemployment rate has hovered largely in the 5 to 7 percent range, typically a comfortable environment.
But those recessions will get you.
There have been a few since 1990, but none as painful as the Great Recession that started a decade ago.
The five-county unemployment rate shot up to 11 percent in the heart of the recession’s local impact in January-March 2010.
The rate crested in Northeast Florida at 10 percent or above for almost two years from June 2009 through March 2011.
That’s a lot higher than its previous peaks during other recessionary periods.
But its floor had been much lower not long before, sinking to 3 percent from November 1998 to January 1999.
The numbers come from the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity and U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Nobody knows the ranges like former Mayor John Peyton.
His term included the highest of the unemployment rates during the Great Recession as well as two years of rates below 4 percent.
“Jacksonville has a well-diversified economy that, over time, helps to soften the impact of the radical economic and employment swings,” said Peyton, a Republican who served two terms from July 1, 2003, through June 30, 2011.
Peyton, president of family-owned Gate Petroleum Co., said the area economy is built on a broad range of industries and includes a large segment of health care and military jobs, which he said tend to be more recession-proof.
“That said, our community, like many others, benefited in the early and mid-2000s from construction and housing starts as well as ongoing efforts to attract and retain businesses in Jacksonville,” he said.
The Great Recession officially was December 2007 to June 2009, but its effects lasted much longer.
The stock market crashed in 2008, falling 777.68 points on Sept. 29 after Congress rejected a bank bailout bill. It took years to recover.
“We were not immune to the impact, particularly in the housing market which influences a broad range of industries,” Peyton said.
Mallot remembers
Veteran economic development leader Jerry Mallot, president of JAXUSA Partnership, arrived in Jacksonville in 1994 to lead the JAX Chamber’s efforts to recruit and expand business and industry.
He remembers those low unemployment rates.
“In the late 1990s, the country was in a very strong cycle that included the dot-com boom and the Y2K phenomenon,” Mallot said, referring to the internet tech explosion and a feared turn-of-the-century technology meltdown that spurred intense investment to preclude a crisis that didn’t happen.
“Jacksonville had a very prosperous period as well and unemployment was at or above the full employment market for a long time,” he said. Full employment generally is considered to be about 5 percent unemployment.
Then came the dot-com bust and the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, which dampened economic growth.
Northeast Florida revved up for the Feb. 6, 2005, Super Bowl game in Jacksonville, concurrent with a surging housing and construction market.
“Leading up to and after the Super Bowl in Jacksonville, our economy was on fire again and employment grew at a rapid pace, again reaching full employment and beyond,” Mallot said.
The building boom burst in the mid-2000s before the Super Bowl impact could be fully realized, he said.
“The lead-up to the Great Recession and its reality took the wind out of our sails and brought very high unemployment with it by 2009-10,” he said.
Baker, Clay, Duval, Nassau and St. Johns counties experienced two stretches of unemployment rates below 4 percent – more than six years from 1995 to 2001 and again from 2005 to 2007.
Northeast Florida rates are back to that level, falling steadily since the 2010 peak.
Unemployment and mayors
Former Mayor John Delaney, a Republican, knows about good economies.
Delaney enjoyed a jobless rate of 3.7 percent when his term started in July 1995 and 5.4 percent when it ended in 2003, and the rate dipped below 4 percent for much of the time.
His eight-year term also coincides with the arrival of the Jacksonville Jaguars, announced in 1993 and playing since 1995.
Delaney, president of the University of North Florida, said governmental chief executives — presidents, governors and mayors — typically get credit for the economy established by their predecessors.
He said that before he took office, former mayors Ed Austin, Tommy Hazouri, Jake Godbold and Hans Tanzler used government and economic tools to improve the local job and business markets.
Tanzler, a Democrat, was the first mayor to serve after city-county consolidation in 1968, serving until 1979.
“I could argue that the benefits of consolidation that Hans Tanzler engineered was fully realized in the decades after it began,” Delaney said, crediting him for efficient government.
Godbold, a Democrat who served from 1979 to 1987, recruited thousands of jobs to Jacksonville with the use of incentives.
“Many were call centers that now we have little interest in. But those were solid wages with health and retirement benefits and there was upward mobility for people without college degrees. It absorbed a large part of under- and unemployed citizens,” Delaney said.
Godbold also focused on Downtown development.
Hazouri, a Democrat who served one term from 1987-1991, led efforts to get rid of odors and tolls.
“Tommy eliminated a major stigma for Jacksonville – odors,” Delaney said. “And the elimination of tolls was actually revenue-positive for transportation investment.”
Hazouri said his administration laid the groundwork for the next four years “and for every mayor allowing us to have the infrastructure in place to bring business in.”
“It was such a positive time that the people voted to remove tolls and replace them with a half-cent sales tax,” Hazouri said.
Hazouri said council approved a clean-air ordinance affecting paper mills and other plants. “We had this very bad reputation as the city that smells,” he said.
The removal of tolls and odors “paved the way for a lot of economic development, including the Jaguars,” he said.
Mayor Ed Austin, who was elected as a Democrat but changed his affiliation to Republican, served one term from 1991-95.
Delaney said Austin professionalized City Hall, while his economic development chief Frank Nero worked on job creation.
“The too-often criticized Frank Nero was fantastic and creative in luring businesses here,” Delaney said, adding that Nero predicted and engineered the redevelopment along Riverside Avenue, where apartments, retailers, restaurants, offices and other development have flourished.
During Delaney’s terms, he said the downturn of 2000-01 emanating from the dot-com bust and 9/11 was mitigated by the $2.2 billion Better Jacksonville plan approved by voters in 2000 to invest in infrastructure and economic development.
He said the growth during his term also carried into the mid-2000s, buoyed by the national expansion.
The Great Recession set in during Peyton’s two terms. Unemployment was 5.3 percent when he took office and 9.9 percent at the end.
But in-between were more than two years below 4 percent and almost two years above 10 percent.
“I don’t think John Peyton gets anywhere near the credit for how he got the city through the Great Recession,” Delaney said.
Democrat Alvin Brown started his single term with a rate of 9.8 percent in 2011 and ended four years later at 5.4 percent as economic development and job growth resumed locally and nationally.
Republican Mayor Lenny Curry took office in 2015 with a rate of 5.2 percent, which has steadily dropped to 3.8 percent in August.
“Our area has been building momentum for several years again and has reached a very strong level with full employment and more,” Mallot said.
Better yet for job seekers, he said no serious negative signs appear today while a boom in Downtown and construction are well underway “and hopefully can last for several more years.”
