Managing Editor
Jacksonville employment growth focused in retail sales, records clerks and food service
As the city recovers from the recession and competes for higher-paying professional, technical and manufacturing jobs, the job categories expected to grow the most are those that generally pay the least.
That’s not unexpected.
A study of Duval County job projections shows that three general occupations — retail sales, information and records clerks and food and beverage servers — are projected to fill an average 1,400 jobs a year.
“Service jobs will come back first,” said Candace Moody, communications vice president for the WorkSouce job service.
“There is a lot of pent-up demand as people start buying again. It also makes sense that the lower-paying jobs show more growth. Job growth occurs from the bottom up,” she said.
Those top three categories currently pay an average $17,181 to $40,664 a year. That highest level represents just a handful of jobs in the records area.
By comparison, the city is considering incentives for jobs near the airport, where the average wage is $41,176. The proposed jobs by Aviation Systems Engineering Co. would pay an average $79,242.
The Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation projected job growth from 2009 through 2017 for the state. The Daily Record analyzed the numbers for Duval County and looked at the job categories projected to add close to 500 jobs or more a year on average.
Those three highest-growth areas also don’t require high levels of education.
According to the agency, food and beverage worker jobs generally provide on-the-job training and are not dependent upon a high-school diploma or equivalency.
Retail sales workers and information and records clerks generally need a high-school diploma or equivalency or career or technical training. Some require licensing.
Of the 16 occupations that will grow the most, the state found that five need at least post-secondary or college training or a college degree.
Just one, the category of health diagnosing and treating professionals, require at least a college certificate or degree, if not professional degrees that take one to six years of full-time or equivalent academic work beyond a bachelor’s degree.
Not surprisingly, those jobs also pay the most, averaging $45,677 to $227,781 a year based on 2009 salaries.
“Health care actually created jobs during this recession, the only Florida industry to stay in positive numbers,” Moody said.
“We’re still investing most of our training money in health occupations. They are high-paying, high-demand occupations that provide a good career path for workers, not just in our region, but nationwide,” she said.
The state takes the recession into account in the projections. Because most industries experienced job declines, some of the job growth projected is to restore the jobs that were lost.
The state projected the job growth both in terms of new jobs and in turnover.
Much of the growth in many of the categories was split between new jobs and turnover, but not all.
Almost two-thirds of the health jobs were new, while three-quarters of the retail sales jobs will come open because of turnover.
And 80 percent of the jobs in “material recording, scheduling and distributing workers” will come through turnover. Those jobs include cargo and freight agents, couriers, dispatchers, meter readers, postal clerks and mail carriers, stock and shipping clerks and related jobs.
“Employment is a pyramid. We’re going to see more churn before we see real job growth,” said Moody.
“People have accepted jobs or hours during the recession that they will want to change at the first opportunity. When that happens, we’ll see a shifting of workers to more hours or more appropriate, and higher paying, positions. That’s how we’ll know hiring is coming back.”
Where the Duval County Jobs Are
Annual openings projected 2009 - 2017
Occupations predicted to fill an average of about 500 job openings or more a year
Source: Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation, Labor Market Statistics Center
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