Chico's labor disadvantage: Fort Myers

A recently published regional work force study reveals how one of Fort Myers company says it is at a disadvantage on the labor front because of its headquarters location here.

Chico's FAS, the women's retailer, has trouble retaining employees because it isn't in the fashion centers in the Northeast and Midwest, near other manufacturers, designers and resellers, according to a study by three universities in the Fort Myers-Naples area.

Chico's says employees use the company as a training ground and then leave the company for a competitor located in northern states. “In the end, the company is always operating at an employee deficit and suffers from high burnout rates and high employee-turnover rates,” the report states.
In particular, Chico's says it has trouble finding qualified employees in the fields of planning, design, product development, merchandising and technology.

Chico's says it would like to mitigate its employee retention difficulties by hiring people who already live in Southwest Florida instead of recruiting job seekers from the Northeast who might leave after a few years. One way it is contemplating doing that is by creating a fashion school in cooperation with one of the colleges in the region.

The insights into Chico's labor challenges were highlighted in Workforce Now, a recently published report by three colleges in the region: Florida Gulf Coast University, Edison State College and Hodges University.