With few jobless, employers labor to fill positions
By Jeff Ostrowski
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/business/content/business/epaper/2006/05/20/m1a_jobless_0520.html
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Marc Mirabella can't wait to fill the empty cubicles in the Jupiter office of his technology-recruiting firm, but an ever-shrinking jobless rate isn't helping his cause.
There's plenty of business out there for his company, Oxford International, he said, but not enough workers.
"We need people — bad," said Mirabella, who runs the 50-person Florida office of Massachusetts-based Oxford.
Like many employers in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast, Mirabella struggles to fill empty desks as jobless figures keep setting records.
The unemployment rates in Palm Beach and Martin counties fell to 30-year lows in April, state officials said Friday.
In Palm Beach County, unemployment sank to 2.8 percent from 3 percent in March, according to the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation. That's the lowest since 1976, when state officials last overhauled the way they track the job market.
In Martin County, the jobless rate was 2.6 percent, down from 2.9 percent in March. And in St. Lucie County, the jobless rate remained 3.1 percent, tied for a record low.
For years, the region has been a perennial job growth juggernaut as the housing market fueled a boom in construction and construction-related jobs. But now, that demand seems to be feeding on itself — even as the housing market cools.
Employers of every ilk — from hotels to call centers to high-paying engineering firms — who had become used to having their pick of a growing labor force are forced to look at alternatives, including expanding to where the workers are — outside a state where the jobless rate fell to 3.0 percent in April, well below the national rate of 4.7 percent.
Recruiting methods expand
Workers, on the other hand, appear to be in the catbird seat.
In Palm Beach County, only 17,585 people were actively seeking work in April, while 609,615 workers were employed, state officials said.
That's good news for workers, who are beginning to get raises. The average weekly wage in Palm Beach County in the third quarter of last year was $768, up 6.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But the microscopic jobless rate doesn't make life any easier for employers like Mirabella, who wants to hire another 50 people. Oxford International places high-end tech workers with employers.
Landing a sales job at Oxford requires little more than a college degree and a good attitude, Mirabella said. Workers can make as much as $80,000 to $100,000 a year within a few years.
But the empty desks remain, so Mirabella recently hired a recruiting director to troll job fairs and college campuses. Oxford offers a $1,500 bonus to workers who refer job applicants who get hired.
At 401kExchange in Greenacres, President Fred Barstein faces similar difficulties in filling the 35 empty seats at his call center, where workers make $35,000 to $40,000 a year. Unable to hire employees here, Barstein is opening a call center in Utah, where wages are lower and, he hopes, workers more plentiful.
For higher-paid positions, Barstein has little choice but to let workers telecommute. He has top employees who work from their homes in Tampa, New Jersey and California.
"I'd rather have everybody here," Barstein said. "There is a lot lost by not being able to have people walk into your office and talk to you. But that's what you have to do to attract talent."
Other employers also are dangling incentives to workers who help recruit employees. At The Breakers in Palm Beach, employees get a $100 gift card to Publix for referring someone who lands a job at the resort.
And with jobless rates still dropping, The Breakers has begun sweetening the pot, spokeswoman Ann Margo Peart said. An employee who refers a chef or restaurant manager, for instance, gets a dinner for two at one of The Breakers' posh eateries. A worker who helps recruit a housekeeper receives two Breakers robes.
Employers revise thinking
The tight job market is forcing employers to offer more generous salaries and benefits, said Dawn Gill of Spherion, a Fort Lauderdale-based staffing firm.
"Employers are really changing the way they look at the workforce," Gill said.
Statewide, the professional and business services sector — think lawyers, accountants and people placed by staffing firms — continued to drive the job market in April, creating 59,100 jobs over the past year. The construction industry was next, adding 48,600 jobs.
But some warn that a cooling real estate market could translate to pain for construction workers, a group that has seen insatiable demand for its services. Jeff Spear, a home builder who's president of the Gold Coast Builders Association, predicts layoffs.
"A lot of builders are cutting back because sales are flat," Spear said.
For now, though, the good times are rolling. Every one of Florida's 67 counties had a lower unemployment rate than the national average of 4.7 percent.
The Panhandle's Walton County had the state's lowest jobless rate, 1.8 percent. Hendry County's 4.3 percent was the highest.