{"id":14068,"date":"2016-06-01T10:40:17","date_gmt":"2016-06-01T14:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mcreativepr.com\/?p=14068"},"modified":"2016-06-01T10:40:17","modified_gmt":"2016-06-01T14:40:17","slug":"regional-workforce-study-results-released","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mcreativepr.com\/2016\/06\/01\/regional-workforce-study-results-released\/","title":{"rendered":"Regional Workforce Study Results Released"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mcreativepr.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/WorkForce-Now-logo.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-13414\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-13414\" src=\"https:\/\/mcreativepr.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/WorkForce-Now-logo-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"WorkForce Now logo\" width=\"300\" height=\"205\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>FORT MYERS, Fla. (June 1, 2016) \u2013\u00a0Which Southwest Florida occupation has the largest gap between the number of workers demanded by employers and the available supply in the labor market?<\/p>\n<p>This is the question studied by Workforce Now\u2019s \u201cReport: Southwest Florida\u2019s Workforce Strong, in Flux.\u201d Workforce Now is a research initiative that studies the regional workforce and is comprised of researchers from Florida Gulf Coast University, Hodges University, and Florida SouthWestern State College. Workforce Now is a partner to the FutureMakers Coalition, a cross-sector coalition from Hendry, Glades, Collier, Lee and Charlotte counties with the shared goal of closing the higher education gap and, more importantly, retaining those high-skilled Southwest Floridians in jobs within the region.<\/p>\n<p>One of the outcomes revealed registered nurses are in great demand today yet did not even make the list of top ten occupational gaps in a 2014 study.\u00a0 This year, the study reveals the demand for nurses exceeded the available supply by 534 workers.<\/p>\n<p>Other Southwest Florida occupations showing significant gaps included retail and construction supervisors, maintenance and repair workers, speech language pathologists, and physical therapists.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe study identifies occupations where the workforce needs are greatest in our area,\u201d said Sarah Owen, president and CEO of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.floridacommunity.com\" target=\"_blank\">Southwest Florida Community Foundation<\/a>, which serves as an anchor organization for the FutureMakers Coalition. \u201cThe needs are short-term as opposed to long-term.\u00a0 But they\u2019re the occupations employers are having the hardest time filling.\u00a0 This creates a domino effect on the quality of life in our region, which is why it is important to have current and relevant information to drive positive change together as a region.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Additional findings of the study include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Southwest Florida\u2019s employment now exceeds 543,000 workers, or about 6 percent of the state of Florida\u2019s workforce.\u00a0 The average Southwest Florida wage is $38,852, compared to $44,810 for Florida and $51,296 for the nation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Southwest Florida\u2019s largest industries by employment are retail trade (19 percent), accommodation and food services (15.5 percent), health care and social assistance (14.1 percent), and construction (9.9 percent).\u00a0 In contrast, the largest industries by wage income included health care and social assistance (18.1 percent), retail trade (13.8 percent), construction (10.3 percent), accommodation and food services (8.4 percent), and professional and technical services (8.3 percent).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The fastest growing industries in Southwest Florida between 2010 and 2014 (as measured by employment) were accommodation and food services (10,656), retail trade (8,731), construction (7,574), health care and social assistance (4,825), and administrative and waste services (4,567).\u00a0 However, slowest growth industries during that time period were utilities (24), information (113), mining, quarrying, and natural gas extraction (122), and finance and insurance (299).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The study projects that the fastest growth industries six years from now will be construction (adding 1,675 jobs per year), health care and social assistance (1,460 jobs per year), retail trade (991 jobs per year), accommodations and food services (872 jobs per year), and self-employed and unpaid family workers (549 jobs per year).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe study suggests a dynamic labor market with shortages and surpluses in several of the industries in our region,\u201d Owen said. \u201cIn terms of the long-term needs of our region, it shows in a pretty dramatic way areas where resources should be administered to address workforce needs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The full study can be downloaded from the Regional Economic Research Institute\u2019s web site at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/goo.gl\/ZTJgFn\">http:\/\/goo.gl\/ZTJgFn<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The FutureMakers Coalition is one of Lumina Foundation\u2019s 75 national Community Partners in Attainment. Residents are encouraged to join and support this community-changing initiative. For more information, visit\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.futuremakerscoalition.com\/\">www.FutureMakersCoalition.com<\/a>, call 239-274-5900 or email Tessa LeSage at\u00a0<u><a href=\"mailto:TLeSage@floridacommunity.com\">TLeSage@floridacommunity.com<\/a><\/u>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FORT MYERS, Fla. (June 1, 2016) \u2013\u00a0Which Southwest Florida occupation has the largest gap between the number of workers demanded by employers and the available supply in the labor market?&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcreativepr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14068"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcreativepr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcreativepr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcreativepr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcreativepr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mcreativepr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcreativepr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcreativepr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcreativepr.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}