JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- “Now Hiring.” Experts say you should be seeing these two words much more here in Jacksonville.
But although Taylor Wilmeth, a University of North Florida student, has heard about the “better numbers” and the “optimistic outlook” it doesn’t really matter to her.
She spent months looking for a job and found it’s still pretty rough out there.
"It’s just hard. No one is really hiring, or you need a lot of work experience,” she said.
But according to the U.S. Department of Labor, 243,000 jobs were added in January. This pushed national unemployment down to 8.3%, which is the lowest rate it has been in three years.
And according to Jerry Mallot, the President of JAXUSA Partnership, Jacksonville is on the rebound.
"We are really seeing tremendous growth across the board,” Mallot said.
He points to Web.com, an online company, that just announced they’ll be hiring more than 200 people locally, and National Healing, a wound care center based here in Jacksonville that’s about to double in size, as examples.
"The total number of jobs created in our region, the growth of jobs in our region, is over 10 thousand just in the last one year,” Mallot said.
Mallot even went as far as saying he believes Jacksonville is going to lead the state’s economic recovery.
"We are actually seeing quite an evolution of jobs in the Jacksonville area and I think we're going to be the fastest area of recovery in Florida,” he said.
And while Wilmeth is hopeful he’s right, she’s not holding her breath.
"I hope it does, but I'm not really sure,” she said.
Mallot said in 2012 the focus is going to be on bringing in higher-wage, more technically-oriented jobs to Jacksonville.
Right now, the city’s unemployment rate is 9.2%, which is about an entire point higher than the national average.
