Southwest Florida is a Great Place to Work

With its golf courses and beautiful Gulf beaches, we all know it’s a great place to live, yet Southwest Florida is a Great Place to Work too. So good that last week, Governor Rick Scott recognized the City of Naples for adding more than 2,000 private sector jobs over the last year. The praise of job growth in Naples follows a period of decline in Florida’s statewide unemployment rate, now reportedly the lowest in eight years. “Florida is on the way to becoming first for jobs and we will not stop working until we reach our goal,” said Governor Scott while also acknowledging taxes have been cut more than 55 times since 2010. He also suggested upwards of $1 billion in tax cuts will occur over the next two years. Since February, Naples has added more than 900 new jobs in construction and more than 800 in the hospitality industry. Interestingly, news reports indicate that over this same February time frame, Naples had just shy of 5,000 job openings, almost 20% of these openings were in high wage fields involving science, technology, engineering and math disciplines.

The fact that Southwest Florida is a great place to work was also recently recognized by Forbes Magazine. Based on research conducted by Moody’s Analytics, Forbes recognized Naples as Florida’s leading metro area for projected job growth. The top ten list also included the Lee County community of Cape Coral among the top three metro areas for job growth. Moody’s has projected Naples will continue to experience annual gains of 4.6 percent throughout 2017.

Those mistaken with the idea that our area is simply a playground for migrating snowbirds and retiring CEOs need to bear in mind Southwest Florida is a great place to work. Today, our communities are made home to a growing population of young professionals, intrepid entrepreneurs and working families. The quality of life that awaits in Southwest Florida isn’t simply a byproduct of green golf fairways and fun times along the shore, but also the ability to secure rewarding careers in a variety of industries. With that in mind, here’s some words of wisdom I once heard imparted to a new resident, “Be careful, you might just get busy.”