- December 1, 2024
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The labor market in Sarasota County is OK for the moment, but the forecast has clouds on the horizon, a labor analyst says.
“We are accelerating our older age population, and we are not replacing it with a younger population, both here in Sarasota, Sarasota County, and across the nation,” Christopher Laney said.
At a luncheon hosted by the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce, Laney, a vice president of Lightcast, a labor market analytics firm, said the area’s fastest growing industries – construction, health care and food service – are some of the areas his company expects to experience labor shortages nationwide in the next five years.
A large part of the problem is Sarasota's aging population, he said, pointing to the fact that a large number of people in the workforce here are nearing retirement. With the average age of retirement in the U.S. at 61, there are 249,000 residents in Sarasota over the age of 55.
At the same time, there are only 59,000 millennials living in Sarasota County, well below the national average. Laney said the national average number of millennials for an area this size is over 95,000.
By 2030, he said the percentage of the population between 20 and 39 years of age is expected to rise only 13%, while those 40-54 will rise 18%, and those 75 and older will grow by 20%.
With fewer young people available to provide services to the older population who are still consuming services, the challenge of filling those jobs will accelerate.
The explosive growth of the area only compounds the problem. “First and foremost, let's talk about population,” he explained. “Sarasota continues to outpace the state and national average. You guys feel it on the roads. You feel it in housing.
“You grew by 10% over the last five years. You're expected to grow by another 9% over the next five years,” Laney said.
From 2018 to 2023, the number of jobs in Sarasota County increased by 9.1%, nearly twice the national average. And that trend is expected to continue.
"So if you're feeling the workforce shortages now within your organization, we're going to add 7,000 more jobs projected between now and 2028,” Laney said, “so this is something that we continuously monitor, especially coming out of a pretty interesting political season.”
Laney says labor shortages may exist because of the high value placed on higher education.
“Right now, 49% of our population is carrying an associate's degree or higher … that is a good thing,” he said.
But it’s detouring younger people from the workforce areas where they’re sorely needed. “One of the challenges that we are seeing in the labor market is ... a lot of the jobs that we really need to keep our society running are the jobs that do not require a college degree.”
He quickly said he’s not discounting the value of higher education. “We know it's important for certain jobs to continuously still have those educational requirements on them,” he said, “but when we look at the top 10 jobs most in demand in America right now, only one of those jobs require a college degree. The other nine do not.”
In a chart he displayed listing the top projected jobs in Sarasota that earn at least $20 an hour, the top 20 did not require a four-year degree. They included:
Laney was asked about the effects of possible mass deportations of immigrants once the Trump administration is sworn in in January.
“The Hispanic population is definitely outpacing much of areas around the country, which is a key demographic group when we talk about the labor market,” he observed.
“In a competitive landscape, it is really important that we don't want more people coming into the country, because I don't want to compete for those jobs. Well, when you have a massive labor shortage, we need everybody we can get to do those jobs,” he said.
“Right now in the state of Florida, 48% of all individuals working in home health aides are foreign born today. Right now, you have about two million individuals that are undocumented in the in the state of Florida, that about 60, 65% of them are working in some of those key occupations group in the food service industry, construction industry.”
“So when we start to think about the importance of immigration to our economy, it's going to be pretty significant in terms of labor shortages, and it is something that we have not shed light or shed away from … because we're just looking at the data.
He said there’s still a conversation to be had around immigration and the value to the labor force. “I think it's just so polarizing. It's a difficult conversation to have,” he said.
I don't believe, and most of our economists do not believe that we will see mass deportations. We will see elements of some deportation to meet the needs of that base to say we're doing it, but we don't anticipate it to be as broad as the rhetoric was.”
While Laney is based in Boise, Idaho, he knows Sarasota County well. He was the Workforce Education Director for CareerSource Suncoast from 2016-2020, where he presented workforce data that aligned education and workforce programming.
Laney says Sarasota has some things going for it. “One thing, you have a pipeline of talent. This community is so fortunate to have such great institutions, whether it's universities, colleges and or technical colleges,” he said.
“So there's a pipeline of talent to meet a lot of the needs that we have shortages in. So that's a positive. So one of the areas that's gonna be really important is how to retain those talents from institutions.
An area to work on, he said was create new industry. “You’ve got to continuously diversify the industries here, not to focus just on hospitality, retail, construction,” he cautioned.
“I have seen an unfortunate downturn in some manufacturing here. I would like to see that increase more. There has been an increase in jobs and biotech, but not enough to change the data.
“I know there's been a focus on a sports tourism area as well. I would be curious to see how that, over the course of the next five years, how that continues to grow as a key industry.”
