EMPLOYMENT
12
HELP WANTED
TCBusiness.com
INDIAN RIVER STATE COLLEGE PHOTOS
Employers on the Treasure Coast are having trouble filling openings for highly specialized jobs, as are their counterparts throughout the nation.
Job openings go unfilled as employers
struggling to hire workers
It’s a jobseeker’s market along the Treasure
Coast and employers need to adapt
to attract and retain the best workers,
staffing experts say.
“This is an employee-driven market just
like it’s a home seller’s market right now,”
Rich Kolleda, co-owner of Spherion Staffing
in Port St. Lucie and Melbourne, said.
The same is true for most of Florida and
the United States.
While some businesses, especially those
where workers come in close contact with
the public, such as retail stores, are having
higher-than-normal rates of sick days
taken amid the omicron variant, the effect
of COVID-19 on the jobs market of the
Treasure Coast is greatly diminished since
the spring 2020.
Nearly two years ago, when restrictions
and uncertainty about the virus were at
their peaks, unemployment along the
Treasure Coast was 13.5%, a level not seen
since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Those high levels were short-lived.
December unemployment figures,
which were released in late January,
showed St. Lucie County at 3.8%, Martin
County at 2.9% and Indian River County
at 3.7%, figures unadjusted for seasonal
factors. These were about the same rates
as December 2020. People who have stopped
looking for work are not counted in
the figures.
LET’S MAKE A DEAL
The workforce in the three coastal counties
of the Treasure Coast in December was
at a near-record of 301,900, of which 51.5%
were in St. Lucie, 25.8% in Martin and >>
BY BERNIE WOODALL
/TCBusiness.com