Jacksonville is #1 at something!

[77danj7]

Jacksonville is ranked as the #1 city for young people (25-34) to find jobs.  I am just about out of this age range now and wondered if everyone agreed/disagreed with this article.

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Media/Slideshow/2012/01/12/10-Best-Cities-for-Young-People-to-Find-Jobs.aspx

1. Jacksonville, FL
This military-centric North Florida city might not be the first one that springs to mind, but its low unemployment rate of 2.7 percent in the city and 3.2 percent in the greater area for 25-34-year-olds makes it a clear winner (that's more than 7 percent below the national rate of 9.4 percent for that age group). The city also had the eighth lowest unemployment for 20-24 year-olds (8.3 percent). Why so many jobs? Three naval air stations supply a steady number of noncivilian jobs, which trickles down to the rest of the community. Plus, the city is home to the largest Toyota distributor in the U.S., and has even seen a recent renaissance in filmmaking, satisfying those creative types.

[thelakelander]

Not in the planning industry. I think something like this would vary, depending on the profession.

[simms3]

Very interesting and extremely hard to believe.  I've always been underwhelmed by the trickle down effect of the military economy in Jax (I suppose relative to Norfolk, Seattle, San Antonio or San Diego where there are huge military hospitals and very clear trickle down support industries, such as shipbuilding, major manufacturing, services, USAA, etc).  Even the VA in Jax is so tiny for a city of its size, let alone a military city where supposedly there are ~150,000 retired vets in the area.

"Three Naval Air Stations"...am I missing two?

"A renaissance in filmmaking"...MetroJacksonville?  Highlight?  That's news to me!  I know Atlanta, Baton Rouge/NOLA, Nashville, and Miami have seen increases in filmmaking and production, but haven't heard of anything being filmed or produced in Jax!

Largest Toyota Distributor...yes, well related to the port, which as we all know is having many issues of its own as it loses out to Miami, Savannah and Charleston.

I don't "doubt" the article per se, and I'm not trying to be a negative nancy, but this list is apparently more poorly done than a Forbes list.  I don't know anyone who thinks of Jax as a job-haven for the 25-34 age group.  Maybe the post 40 age group once you have job location flexibility or can work from home, and you have kids.  But single young profs?  Historically the city has been the antithesis of the young, single prof working city.

[CityLife]

These "best of studies" are usually done to drive hits to websites. Oftentimes they have very little credibility or methodology behind them. Like Simms pointed out, you can tell from the writeup that it's not that legit.

[simms3]

And I just wanted to add that the robust Bay Area economy, especially as it relates to tech, was born because of the military, which has done wonders for many cities, just not yet Jacksonville to any significant degree.  State and city leaders either need to shit or get off the pot with NE FL's military presence...because aside from direct employment of ~20,000 non-civilian workers and maybe another 10-20,000 civilian base workers, I see little to no impact for the overall economy.  All of the city's defense contractors (such as Armour Holdings) have been bought up.  BAE has a "presence", but trivial.

San Antonio now houses huge military services, such as USAA's HQ, and is the leading city of defense contracting and the military health network, with 3 or 4 significantly sized military related hospitals where vets fly from all over for treatment.

San Diego is just massive operation, easily 10-20x the operation found in Jacksonville.  Military retirement services is also large there and translates to an entire industry, fueling real estate (housing, retail, office).  Not to mention the huge Navy Hospital there and the related industries it fuels.

Seattle still has a huge presence - multiple large hospitals, some defense contracting, a military tech presence that fuels and feeds its overall tech industry, U-dub related programs that tie into the military, Bremerton, which is huge, etc etc.

Norfolk has the largest shipbuilding operation in NA still, mostly tied to the military in some way, not to mention the Navy Hospital, the various huge bases, etc etc.

And anyone who has spent any time in SF/Bay Area can more easily be touched by the military in some way than in NE FL.  250,000 workers came to build ships during WWII and the military maintained a large base (at Alameda and in Richmond I believe) up until the 80s or so.  There are still dozens of ships parked at Alameda, and the entire local booming economy can be traced back to manufacturing and defense contracting (especially with regards to Tech and how the military used Berkeley and Stanford and still does) from WWII on.  Alameda City, ~75,000, is on an island that feels like the entire place is a military town (I'm there routinely...almost went today actually).

Sorry Jax...you gotta do something to maintain yourself as a military town...heck Charleston is a huge military town (maybe discreetly larger than Jax now).  Boeing.  Several bases.  Shipbuilding.  Defense contracting.  Port.  Larger military hospital network.

Shit.  Or get off the pot.  Right?

[Tacachale]

It's really amusing that people around here are incredulous when these silly things say something positive, but take them at face value when they're negative. Too typical.

[ProjectMaximus]

These "best of studies" are usually done to drive hits to websites. Oftentimes they have very little credibility or methodology behind them. Like Simms pointed out, you can tell from the writeup that it's not that legit.

Would be better if this list was titled "Cities with the lowest unemployment numbers for the 25-34 age range." Seems that was the entire methodology (and only within city limits, too). I think all the other info provided was just peripheral and not pertinent to their rankings.

[CityLife]

It's really amusing that people around here are incredulous when these silly things say something positive, but take them at face value when they're negative. Too typical.

Was this directed at me or Simms or both? Sorry, but I don't just blankly look at something and say "yippeee super, we're the best!". There is zero qualitative analysis in that "study". Sure, we may have a 2.7% unemployment rate for young people, but how many of those are good jobs? How much is that number skewed up by having tens of thousands of military here? How many young people are moving here from around the country for jobs? How many young people don't even live here because they can't find quality jobs?

Come on Tacachale, you're better than that.

[Tacachale]

It's really amusing that people around here are incredulous when these silly things say something positive, but take them at face value when they're negative. Too typical.

Was this directed at me or Simms or both? Sorry, but I don't just blankly look at something and say "yippeee super, we're the best!". There is zero qualitative analysis in that "study". Sure, we may have a 2.7% unemployment rate for young people, but how many of those are good jobs? How much is that number skewed up by having tens of thousands of military here? How many young people are moving here from around the country for jobs? How many young people don't even live here because they can't find quality jobs?

Come on Tacachale, you're better than that.

Not directed at anyone in particular, just the peculiar tendency of many around here to treat positive assessments with much more skepticism than than they do for equally dubious negative assessments. We probably rank pretty highly in the list of cities with out-of-proportion inferiority complexes.

[CityLife]

Being realistic doesn't mean someone has an inferiority complex...like Maximus said, this should be called "Cities with the lowest unemployment numbers for the 25-34 age range", not "10 best cities for young people to find jobs".

[fsujax]

I understand where you are coming Tacachale. I get that feeling many times too.

[sonoandrea]

"Three Naval Air Stations"...am I missing two?

I'm sure they are erroneously referring to Naval Station Mayport and Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay as "Naval Air Stations."

[I-10east]

Oh, that very distant far away Mayport FL, yup it's definitely out of Jax's metro. SMH

[fieldafm]

Oh, that very distant far away Mayport FL, yup it's definitely out of Jax's metro. SMH

I think they are referring to Cecil Field, which was shut down more than a decade ago.  Also, JF Family Enterprises and Air Supply Depot (there are 4 times as many people in this age group employed in financial services in Jacksonville than naval civillian contractors, for instance) aren't contributing to those figures in any significant way like the article implies.  Whatever depth the author tried to go into, was clearly not researched very well.

That said, I have no problems with the actual unemployment figures.  Just b/c the unemployment figures are low, doesnt mean that they are high for specific industries... I don't think some of the negative comments are putting that in perspective.

To me, this report solidifies every other study done showing that young professionals with college degrees by and large do not suffer from the unemployment problems that other demographics face.  If anything, this offers even more fuel to the argument that the City should re-invest in the types of things that make Jacksonville an attractive place for college-educated young professionals.   

Look no further than the thoughts of former City of Jacksonville Planning Director (now the State of Florida's Director of Community Development at the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity) Bill Killingsworth:

CEOs for Cities published a report they call the Talent Dividend. Their research indicates that for every %1 increase in college attainment there is a $763 increase in per capita income. Some simple math indicates that just striving for average would net 2.5 billion dollars for Duval County annually.  That's a powerful argument for Jacksonville adding a vibrant urban product to it's real estate portfolio.

[I-10east]

Not directed at anyone in particular, just the peculiar tendency of many around here to treat positive assessments with much more skepticism than than they do for equally dubious negative assessments. We probably rank pretty highly in the list of cities with out-of-proportion inferiority complexes.

+1000