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Hiring Rebound Continues
Health care takes lead in forecasts for stronger Brevard County employment

By Anne Straub
Brevard Technical Journal

The Space Coast employment picture is continuing its slow but steady improvement despite taking several hits already in 2003, observers say.

Although tourism and consumer confidence suffered in the wake of the Columbia tragedy and the war in Iraq, companies have shown a smaller propensity to lay off workers than they did last year, noted Lynda Weatherman, president and CEO of the Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast.

NASA’s decision not to lay off workers at Kennedy Space Center after Columbia was destroyed during re-entry on Feb. 1 saved the area from the three-year slump it endured after the 1986 Challenger accident, said Walt Johnson, executive director of the Space Coast Economic Development Commission in Titusville. Still, the impact on tourism will remain until NASA returns to flight, expected late this year or in the first half of 2004.

North Brevard is enjoying growth in the form of people moving to the area from Orlando, Johnson said. Some are buying homes and commuting to Orlando; others are relocating completely. More than 3,000 residential units are at some point in construction. “We haven’t seen that kind of growth in two decades,” Johnson said.

People are attracted to the opportunity to live near the water and buy more house for the money than they could get in Orlando. Lack of gridlock is another benefit. “You can get to the Orlando airport from Titusville faster than you can from parts of Orlando,” Johnson said.

Countywide, hiring in the manufacturing and high-tech base is stable at best. “We have seen that companies with defense contracts are currently hiring. In general, however, business hiring looks flat,” according to Weatherman.

Companies are asking the EDC about grant money for training, indicating they expect to hire in the future, she noted.

Improvement should show in the jobless figures for March, said Linda South, executive director of the Brevard Workforce Development Board. The latest figures now available show Brevard’s jobless rate dropped to 5.2 percent in February, compared with 5.4 percent in February 2002.

Those statistics also showed the retail sector added 300 jobs, a healthy sign for the future. “That represents discretionary money, and when you see an increase in those demands it shows people are becoming more confident with spending money instead of saving it,” South said.

The strongest area for hiring is in health care. “It is and will continue to represent our largest growth sector,” South said.

Part of that increase is tied to Wuesthoff Health System’s new hospital, which opened last year in Melbourne and added 300 workers to the company’s 2,300 total payroll. Wuesthoff also operates a larger facility in Rockledge.

Nursing positions are the most difficult to fill, followed by radiology/diagnostic imaging and pharmaceutical, said Michael Silgen, vice president of public relations. Positions in those latter specialties are currently filled, but openings for nurses remain.

Aggressive advertising and recruiting has cut the hospital’s open nursing positions about in half. “It’s an ongoing challenge,” Silgen said, noting that the average of nurses is increasing, indicating a continued shortage. “It’s going to take getting more student openings, getting people in there and getting them through the pipeline.”

Wuesthoff and other local health-care companies are working with training providers to get more nurses into the labor pool.

Despite expanding its nursing program, Brevard Community College still has a waiting list of potential students in line for a slot to open. The upside comes for the students when they finish their degrees: “They find employment very quickly,” said Dr. Barbara Ake, vice president of allied health for BCC.