Tallahassee lost 708 jobs last year; here's how the Chamber wants the city to grow

Tallahassee lost 708 jobs last year; here’s how the Chamber wants the city to grow

Posted by Admin January 17, 2025 Jobs

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The critical need for more jobs underlined the Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce Annual Meeting as new efforts are being launched to steer attention toward industries capable of creating “transformational jobs.”

Leon County took a hit last year with a year-over-year loss of more than 700 jobs, according to the Florida Chamber of Commerce economic scorecard (A dashboard of economic factors designed to gauge a community’s vitality.) The job-growth rate dipped slightly by .4 percentage points. To stay competitive, Leon County needs more than 14,130 new jobs by 2030.

More than 600 business, nonprofit and public sector leaders and employers attended the meeting. It offered a recap of wins and lingering challenges, according to Chamber officials, along with a blueprint toward the organization’s pivot aimed at targeted industries.

“Our message, I think, has been pretty consistent and very clear, and that is that private sector growth, more than any other strategies that a community may attempt to engage in, has been proven to be the best strategy to improve the entire community,” said outgoing Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors Chairman Rob Clarke.

Clarke recalled attending a local prosperity summit, led by Leon County Commissioner Bill Proctor, that rang the alarm for community support for the 32304 ZIP code — the poorest in the state. The dubious distinction was first revealed by the Florida Chamber of Commerce President Mark Wilson during the Tallahassee Chamber’s annual meeting in 2018.

Clarke called it a “sobering problem in our community” and said the main takeaways from the summit and efforts that followed concluded “the best solution, the best way to transform the lives of the citizens in this ZIP code was to create jobs in Tallahassee.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, with that in mind, we should never forget that the job creators are in this room,” said Clarke, an attorney at the Ausley McMullen law firm. His comments sparked an “Amen” from the crowd as he continued, “Your business success and growth provides exactly what this community desperately needs.”

There were some bright spots.

Compared to last year, fewer children are living in poverty in Leon County. Tallahassee’s economic scorecard shows 9,485 children living in poverty, representing 17.6% of children in the county. In addition, at 55%, more than half of Leon County’s third-graders are reading at grade level — an improvement compared to recent years but still an illustration of an area business leaders say needs intervention.

Sha’Ron James, newly appointed chairwoman for the Chamber’s Board of Directors, declared Tallahassee was “standing at the intersection of opportunity and action as we look to 2025” and said she wanted to “embrace a vision for Tallahassee that is bold, vibrant and thriving.”

James, a Tallahassee-based lawyer and lobbyist for Gunster Law Firm with offices throughout the state, said the Chamber will continue its mission and “lead and promote the success of businesses driving a higher quality of life for our community.”

“We will do this boldly by elevating local industry, advancing regional competitiveness, celebrating and leveraging the economic impact of our colleges and universities and partnering with state leaders to secure greater investment in the capital region,” James said.

Q&A with Sha’Ron James, new chairwoman for the Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors

In an interview with the Tallahassee Democrat, James laid out priorities for 2025 and reiterated the overarching goal echoed before her chairmanship.

Some key focus areas, she said, will be to apply more focus on regional economic competitiveness, including more time and attention on site readiness for potential employers looking to relocate or expand, along with permitting, infrastructure and logistics.

“So making sure that as the city, the county and the region grow, we have the infrastructure in place for that growth from a logistics standpoint … and ensure that our airport is successful from an economic development standpoint.”

Q: In reference to the Tallahassee International Airport, would you consider it, to be our biggest and best regional asset that we have in our tool kit?

A: I would agree with your statement that the airport is one of the biggest assets that we have in our city, particularly because of the amount of activity that happens on the state level, as well as the city and our residents. It really is a gateway to other parts of the state, the region and the nation.

Q: Does the chamber have any interest in seeing an airport authority model (as opposed to a city-run model) moving forward? Does the Chamber plan on moving forward with any call to action there?

A: We don’t have a particular call to action in terms of what solutions are needed to help ensure that the airport adds to our regional competitiveness. We will continue to monitor that issue, but what I can say is that our members have expressed and continue to express the need for more work in that area.

Q: You all have an upcoming board meeting, right? Isn’t it going to be at the airport?

A: Yes, it is. For us, that was important because it is a major priority for us. We wanted to make sure that all of our board members had an opportunity to see firsthand what was happening at the airport.

Before we make any call to action or make recommendations from a policy standpoint as to what could or should happen, it’s important for our leadership to really understand and know firsthand exactly what’s happening.

Q: In previous years, there’s always been this call for more jobs, more jobs. Can you talk about the state of our economy as it relates to job creation?

A: I can tell you that we are committed to always seeing an increase and improving our job numbers … One of the ways that we’re focused on that this year is really honing in on local industry. (James said the Chamber has set up a Local Industry Council initiative).

We have always been committed to being a catalyst for small business growth and our core function and mission and programming really is centered around advancing and making sure that the small businesses in our community are successful.

We’re also adding another layer to that, and that is a focus on some key high-growth and targeted industries that we believe really have the opportunity and have the ability to bring really transformational jobs to our area.

James explained those areas for the four newly created councils: Information Technology Council, Applied Sciences and Innovation Council, Manufacturing, Transportation and Logistics Council and Healthcare Innovation Council.

Q: There’s been a pretty steady stream of business closures. How does that play into what your plan is to build up small businesses and also not see these well-known chains and mom-and-pop stores fold in our area?

A. I would say that one of the areas of importance… is making sure that we focus in on jobs … that have wages that really allow for those employees and those businesses to help other small businesses because of the revenue that they generate and the dollars that flow through them.

Whether we’re seeing restaurants closing… (or) Walgreens and pharmacies, we believe that if we bring in jobs of that caliber … we’ll see increases in revenue and the wages increase to help other business sectors also be successful.

Q. There’s this upcoming conference happening here in Tallahassee. It’s called the Motor Drive Systems and Magnetic Conference, and it’s the largest of its kind and first time that it’s going to be hosted here in Tallahassee … From a Chamber perspective, how can we really maximize that conference to achieve all the things that you just said?

Conferences like that help shine a light on industries and industry sectors I previously mentioned.

So part of the question that we’re looking to answer is how we as a Chamber celebrate the economic impact of our colleges and universities, but also look to leverage the dollars that are flowing through it. Some of the questions are how do we connect our local business and industry to the research has taken place on campus, and how do we leverage and partner to create opportunities for business growth?

Q: The Chamber has been criticized regularly by progressive city commissioners and some residents. As the new board chair, how do you plan to handle that?

A: Overall, I believe the criticisms of the Chamber have been misguided and misdirected. So this notion that the Chamber is somehow an invisible hand leading our community down the dark path, I think, is far from the truth. So I look forward to dispelling that myth.

At the end of the day, what’s apparent to me is that we all want what’s best for Tallahassee, but the challenge is that we differ significantly on the approach. My hope is that as we move forward under my leadership, and in the days and weeks to come, we have a bit more civility.

Contact Economic Development Reporter TaMaryn Waters at tlwaters@tallahassee.com and follow @TaMarynWaters on X.