2021 Job Outlook: Floridians Should Be ‘Cautiously Optimistic’

FLORIDA — 2020 was a tumultuous year for Florida’s economy thanks to the coronavirus pandemic that continues to spread throughout the state in the new year. But there’s reason to be hopeful in the Sunshine State, according to Florida TaxWatch, a nonpartisan, nonprofit taxpayer research institute and government watchdog.

In its latest report, “2021 Economic Preview: An Uncertain Yet Hopeful Year of Growth,” the organization said that with several coronavirus vaccines hitting the market and “gradually improving labor market conditions,” Floridians can look forward to a “slow but steady” year of economic rebuilding.

It’s anticipated that Florida’s unemployment rate will drop to 5.5 percent in 2021. While this is higher than pre-pandemic rates, it certainly beats the 13.8 percent peak in April, when the state was locked down.

The state’s labor force growth rate of about 2.9 percent is also “promising,” according to the report. This indicates that many Floridians who stopped looking for work because of the pandemic, are back on the market and job hunting.

Of course, with the good comes some bad news. Wages and salaries are expected to fall by 3.2 percent in 2021. Still, with the dropping unemployment rate, the return of many jobs lost early in the pandemic and the growing labor force, applicants “have plenty of reason to be cautiously optimistic” in the new year, Florida TaxWatch said.

So, what fields should job hunters be looking at? According to the report, the sector with the highest projected job growth in 2021, at 11.9 percent, is leisure and hospitality. The organization notes, though, that much of the growth in this area “will be due to companies reclaiming many of the jobs lost during the pandemic’s earliest months.”

Other sectors that will likely see significant job growth in the new year are education and health services (8.1 percent), financial activities (8.1 percent), information (7 percent), professional and business services (6.4 percent), and wholesale trade (5.1 percent).

Marc Adam, a managing partner at MASC Medical Recruitment Firm in Fort Lauderdale, said that because of coronavirus, the health care field will have plenty of job opportunities in the new year.

“Organizations are looking to hire right now, considering everything going on with the pandemic,” he said.

The top two health care roles that need to be filled are nurses and respiratory technicians. Even before the pandemic, nurses were in high demand, Adam added. “Outside of COVID, there’s always a very big need for nurses. That’s never changed. Now it’s just significantly increased.”

There are two types of nurses: those that take on a permanent position at a health care facility and traveling nurses who help wherever they’re needed the most, he said. Throughout the pandemic, traveling nurses have “been called in to assist in areas seeing an increase in cases and hospitalizations. Now, they’re stretched thin and the staffing agencies have been stretched thin.”

He added, “There’s a lot of burnout in the medical space in general.”

Moving forward, telehealth will also continue to play an important role in health care, Adam said. “This means technology is gonna play a lot larger role.” Those who have the skills to build, manage and maintain these telehealth platforms will be highly employable in this sector, as well.

Meanwhile, Edouard Thoumyre, the owner of ACCUR, a Miami-area recruiting agency that focuses on specialized consumer industries, such as retail, consumer goods and hospitality, said the pandemic caused businesses in these areas to shift toward e-commerce. As a result, he’s seen a high demand for software engineers.

“Those talents are pretty rare and highly sought after. They’re difficult to find,” he said. “With e-commerce, they need more up-to-date technologies and need to hire workers who can run their sites both on the front and on the back end.”

In South Florida, many businesses deal with international markets and aren’t known for their “modern, technological platform,” Thoumyre said. So, focusing more on e-commerce is a drastic shift for them.

“They’re recruiting people to improve what they have or maybe to change their platform entirely,” he said.

In particular, companies dealing in luxury goods tend to adapt to new technology the slowest and are now scrambling to catch up, he added. “That’s probably the last one in all the consumer industries to adapt.”

Many retailers are relying on Amazon to sell their products now, as well. These employers are looking for experts in using the e-commerce behemoth’s platform as a third-party seller.

“Anything related to Amazon is big now, as well. There’s a big trend of getting people who have very strong experience with their platforms,” Thoumyre said. “Understanding how a brand can sell on Amazon, how to list and sell on Amazon. There are different (ways to sell.) They are very strategic choices that should be made about who controls the actual distribution.”

The pandemic has also changed how many companies do business, as many employees are now successfully working from home, he said. As a result, many well-known corporations are downsizing their offices and considering moves to Florida. With these companies could come new job opportunities.

In December, it was reported that the Goldman Sachs Group is considering moving its asset management division to South Florida and that JPMorgan Chase’s CEO is also thinking about relocating the company to Miami. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez has publicly urged Big Tech companies and Wall Street firms to move to sunny Florida.

“It’s an interesting trend,” Thoumyre said. “Large cities like New York and San Francisco are bleeding out talent and companies are going to more affordable and nicer environment type of locations.”

He added, “Miami is benefitting from that… it’s going to get a fair share of these relocations. Employees can work from home anywhere they want. And these companies are finding their way south to, basically, be able to save money on office costs – (New York City) is outrageously expensive – and employees are getting a better, more affordable lifestyle. It’s a good work-life balance.”

This article originally appeared on the Miami Patch