The Tampa area lost 23,100 jobs from June 2007 to June 2008. Hillsborough County's employment rate was 5.7 percent for June 2008. That Pinellas County's June unemployment rate hit 5.5 percent in June. Pasco County skyrocketed to 6.8 percent.
WMNF interviewed job seekers at a recent Tampa job fair. Many people are not optimistic about their prospects. USF student Adam Elminshawy needs a job to get out of debt. "I need a job bad. The economy is screwed up. … This is ridiculous," Thomas Phillips. "I’m out here looking for a job and I’m just not finding a way. This is why the crime rate is so high in Tampa Bay."
The Tampa Bay Business Journal reports Tampa has lost more jobs than any other city since the beginning of 2008. The numbers come from the Agency for Workforce Innovation. The numbers are issued by the Florida government. The AWI adjusted numbers have state job growth in June of 2008 at -1.0 percent. The report says that Governor Charlie Crist and the Florida legislature will spend $10 billion on "projects that create jobs for Floridians." We'll see.
Printing money to create jobs is like robbing Peter to pay Paul. You can't just take money from one hand and give it to another. And you can't just print money without effectively raising inflation. Florida needs a higher caliber of people to create new ways of doing things. For example, get rid of the housing lobby so we can start building more affordable and more secure geo desic dome housing. We need innovation. Not more politicians printing money. Out with the old and in the with new.
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