FOCUS: Jobs Now

REVIEW SUMMARY
What. Workforce Florida aims to change local workforce boards' priorities.
Issue. Training for jobs now or for the future.
Impact. Cutting the state's unemployment rate in half would mean jobs for a half million residents.
At a Glance. Click here for additional information.

A career sounds much better than a job. But when the fridge is bare and mortgage payment past due, a job is of immediate importance.

The job simply beats the potential long-term career requiring an investment of time and money. That trade-off is essentially the same one facing workforce boards and Workforce Florida, Inc.

These state agency partnerships of economic development, business, academia and government face a choice between short-term job training to get the unemployed back to work quickly, and longer-term career education. That's a key issue for Workforce Florida and its 24 workforce boards grappling with the best way to use resources in the face of near-record unemployment.

“I think it's a more balanced approach between today's needs and tomorrow needs,” says Chris Hart, president of Workforce Florida, Inc., run as a public-private partnership by a board of directors that oversees the state's workforce policy, programs and services.

“It's also getting us closer to a true market-based approach to delivering today's needs and tomorrow's needs,” Hart adds, meaning there's an increased emphasis on collaboration with economic development, business and education interests to deliver a workforce trained for what industry needs now and later.

Workforce Florida is a 47-member board from government, academia and business. Members with Gulf Coast roots include Gov. Charlie Crist, Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey; Bob Beck, president of Bradenton-based Staffing Professionals and chairman-elect of the Suncoast Workforce Board; Randy Berridge, president of the Florida High Tech Corridor Council, and Hillsborough County Commissioner Mark Sharpe.

Venice accountant Eric Robinson left the board earlier this year. Robinson says he resigned because he doesn't agree with the agency's overemphasis on training for jobs needed in the future instead of the ones people could get, and need, now.

Though Robinson also acknowledges a need to look to the future, he believes that's been overemphasized in the past given the high jobless rate. Hart says Robinson resigned because he also missed too many meetings.

New plan, new focus

With more than a million unemployed in Florida, representing an 11.4% June unemployment rate, the Agency for Workforce Innovation has had its hands full. AWI administers Florida's job market and unemployment insurance program under the umbrella of Workforce Florida.

And the trend is not their friend. The number of new claims for state unemployment insurance around the country jumped by 2,000 to 484,000 for the week ending Aug. 7 making it the second straight increase and the highest level since the week ended Feb. 20.

But the state has also had more money from the federal government to dole out to various training programs, about 60% more by Edward Peachey's estimate. Peachey, who somehow is able to run the Tampa Bay WorkForce Alliance in addition to his position as President of WorkNet Pinellas, says priorities have changed with the rise in unemployment numbers.

“The priorities have definitely shifted,” says Peachey, noting that his agencies aren't doing as much with chambers of commerce and other business groups as they use to.

“I would hope that that's still good news for business,” Peachey says. “Our priorities have shifted away from doing marketing, public relations and employer involvement. We've shifted away from that to putting our money into training and retaining people who are unemployed.”

Some of the reason behind that may be attributed to controversy earlier this year that led to Peachey's predecessor at the Tampa Bay Workforce Alliance resigning.

Under former president and CEO, Renee Benton Gilmore, the agency came under fire for spending too much money on food and beverages when hosting events to bring business owners and job seekers together, and for employee recognition events.

In a Jan. 15 piece in the Tampa Tribune, Gilmore partly blamed contracted management companies running career centers for the problem, but lost her job anyway. Following legislative direction, new rules have now been put in place by Workforce Florida to address the spending issue.

The bad publicity stemming from the incident may have influenced a statewide telephone survey about workforce issues taken in February of nearly 1,300 adult Floridians.

That survey, of which 41% of respondents were from the Tampa Bay or Southwest Florida area, reflects some disenchantment, perhaps also because 14% of those surveyed said they were unemployed and not retired.

Slightly more than half — 50.9% — think the state does a poor job when it comes to creating jobs. Less than 11% gave the state a good or excellent rating with just 1.5% rating the state's job creating efforts as excellent. The survey was presented Aug. 12 to the Workforce Florida board of directors at its meeting in Orlando.

Since the survey was taken, the Florida Legislature approved $3.2 million designated specifically for workforce development needs. A $40 million multi-agency effort of the state and federal government is getting underway to retrain space industry workers getting pink slips.

That legislation appears to be a reaction to last year's Workforce Florida plan update to its 2005-2010 plan. That Jan. 1, 2009 plan update was titled, “Re-iMagine — Creating a Workforce for Florida's Future.”

But that plan gives an inkling that it's trying to either do too much or satisfy too many. It reads: “ ... the challenge and focus for Florida's workforce system is clear— helping Floridians find and retain employment during the current economic downturn with an eye toward securing the state's future as the economy rebounds.”

At the Aug. 12 board meeting, the agenda included the agency's 2010-2015 Strategic Plan for Workforce Development titled, “Creating the Strategy for Today's Needs and Tomorrow's Talent.”

The title of the new plan reflects a shift in philosophy from a single focus on the future to emphasizing both current needs and developing skills for jobs that don't yet exist.

Feds changed rules

Longer term training is the focus of Joe Paterno, the executive director of the Southwest Florida Workforce Board, based in Fort Myers. “We've all done things a little bit different,” Paterno says in pointing out the diversity of various regions of the state.

He says, his agency has “gotten away” from employed worker training and short-term training programs because it didn't make sense to train people for positions with no job openings. Paterno now has more than 1,800 people in longer term training in programs for registered nurses, law enforcement and others looking to change careers or start a new one.

A key reason Paterno prefers to avoid training programs for already employed workers is that the federal government changed the rules and now requires that funding only support economically disadvantaged workers. But he says, “Most people working probably don't meet the eligibility [requirements]. He prefers to save his agency's local dollars for those that have been laid off.

Another reason may be that in 2009, “quick response training” funds — typically used to train existing employees for new jobs or to improve skills, and customized to a company's needs — were reduced from $5 million to $3.3 million. Those funds are the only non-federal funds the state has for business-specific, customized workforce training.

Meanwhile Texas is allocating $40 million to employee training, or more than 12 times what Florida is spending though Texas' population is just a third larger. Georgia is spending $50 million and South Carolina, with 25% fewer residents, allocates more than 17% additional state dollars to customized training than Florida.

To implement the new strategic plan, in March the Agency for Workforce Innovation rolled out three new efforts working through its 91 “One Stop Centers” to get the unemployed back to work.

One of those programs is the Employ Florida Marketplace, the state's online job-matching portal, available directly to job seekers and businesses. Known as “In-Context LMI,” it offers data on the number of job openings in any geographic area based on job seekers' skills, wages and other factors giving users access to information about their local job market.

Asked what's next for dealing with workforce issues in Florida, Hart says, “The next big change is collaboration with identified partners with what the marketplace wants. Targeted industry clusters — that's where we've made a very strong statement to support economic diversification efforts of the state.”

Local boards

The Southwest Florida Workforce Board, based in Fort Myers, covers five counties — Charlotte, Lee, Collier, Glades and Hendry — and operates in seven locations from Port Charlotte to Immokalee.

The Suncoast Workforce Board serves Sarasota and Manatee counties with full service facilities in Bradenton, Sarasota, and Venice and a satellite office at North Port City Hall.

There are five locations in Pinellas County from Tarpon Springs to St. Petersburg run by WorkNet Pinellas. The Tampa Bay WorkForce Alliance is Hillsborough County's workforce board, and operates three facilities in Tampa one in Plant City.

The Pasco-Hernando Workforce Board, headquartered in Brooksville, operates “One-Stop Centers” in Spring Hill, New Port Richey and Zephyrhills.