Local employers and veterans will meet at the eighth Paychecks for Patriots hiring event on Thursday, Nov. 7 at Veterans Memorial Park in Fort Pierce. This is the eighth year the Florida departments of Economic Opportunity, Veterans Affairs and Military Affairs is sponsoring the statewide hiring event timed for Veterans Day.
Locally job seekers are doing well. The state’s economic opportunity department recently released its monthly jobs report covering September. St. Lucie’s non-agricultural unemployment dropped August to September from 4.4 percent not seasonally adjusted to 3.7 percent.
“The increase in hiring activity for the month of September compared (to) previous months aligns with seasonal trends, especially for leisure and hospitality and education and health services,” Tonya Woodworth, communications manager at CareerSouce Research Coast, said in an emailed response to queries.
The county started 2019 with a 4.7 percent non-agriculture, not-seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate in January. By February it had inched down to 4.2. Then in March the unemployment rate dipped to 3.9 percent. April has the best number so far this year – a 3.5 percent unemployment rate.
In May that rose to 3.8 percent, which was the start of the annual summertime employment dip on the Treasure Coast. In June the not-seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate crossed jumped to 4.3 percent. Then it held steady into July at 4.3.
Employers interested in hiring veterans have a tough market nationally, too. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the national seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate among veterans was 3.2 percent, down from 3.4 in August. September was the 13th consecutive month nationally that veterans had stronger employment numbers than others.
This has been a turnaround since Paychecks for Patriots launched in 2012. At that time veterans had above-average unemployment in some, especially younger, cohorts. Also, at the time Florida’s unemployment rate was slowly improving from the Great Recession, but still high. It was inching to and just below 8 percent for much of 2012.
Not only are veterans filling jobs in Port St. Lucie, they’re creating them, too. The Florida Department of Veteran Affairs is a large employer moving into Tradition.
The department reports it will start hiring for the Ardie R. Copas State Veterans’ Nursing Home in January. The department expects to open the home next summer. The coming hiring rush is going to squeeze an already tight industry sector, education and health services.
“One challenge for the healthcare sector is that local training institutions are at capacity and cannot train students fast enough to keep up with industry demand,” Woodworth said in the email.
The problem isn’t unique to the Treasure Coast. According to the Department of Economic Opportunity, from September 2018 to September 2019 education and health services was the industry that gained the most jobs in Florida, 59,600, up 4.5 percent.
The Copas home, when opened, will take up to 120 patients. It will specialize in dementia care for qualifying veterans.
The national and state unemployment rates are calculated using a variety of methods. Among them are random telephone interviews with people in working ages. Those that are able to work and report not having jobs, but looked for employment in the previous 30 days, are counted as unemployed. Discouraged workers – those who are able to work and want jobs, but have not sought employment in the previous 30 days – are not counted in the unemployment figure. Many call this “shadow unemployment,” and it’s inherently difficult to track due to variations for why people don’t seek jobs.
The event is at Veterans Memorial Park at Riverwalk Center, 600 N. Indian River Drive, Fort Pierce, from 9 a.m. to noon. Registration is at www.careersourcerc.com/veterans.
