The Florida Council of 100 today unveiled a statewide economic development blueprint that aims to add 200,000 high-wage jobs and $100 billion to the state’s GDP by 2030.
The 26-page report — “Beyond Sunshine: Advancing Florida’s World Class Economy for the Next Generation” — recognizes there cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach across Florida and presents strategies specific to six regions of the state. Built on research by McKinsey and conversations with key industry leaders and economic development officials around the state, it identifies both existing and emerging “priority sectors” for Florida’s economic development community to focus on in each of those regions.
Mike Simas, president and CEO of Florida Council of 100, a 63-year-old nonpartisan group of business leaders, says the goal of the study was to identify Florida’s “best bets” as they relate to wages and resiliency across a spectrum of industries. “You really want industries that will pop back up in a reasonable amount of time without too much job loss” after an economic downturn, Simas says. They also need to provide jobs that can sustain the cost of living in Florida, “given that we’re really, in some of these regions, no longer a low-cost market.”
The Central and East Central region, for instance, could potentially add 46,000 to 54,000 jobs by 2030 and up to $21 billion in GDP via “priority sectors” that include aerospace and defense, and business services, as well as “emerging sectors” such as semiconductor manufacturing, IT and technology. Northeast Florida, the report finds, could potentially add 19,000 to 23,000 jobs and up to $10 billion in GDP by focusing on industry clusters that include advanced manufacturing, business services, distribution and e-commerce, finance and insurance, as well as emerging clusters in aerospace and defense and health services/biopharma and med-tech.
Simas sees the report as a starting point for what he hopes will be a continued conversation between private sector leaders, economic developers and others to drive investment and leverage the talent pipeline to make sure it’s “feeding the industries that will give us the highest best bang for our buck on jobs and employment.”
“We think this work will set the stage for a really sophisticated approach to economic development that’s really just driven by the assets that the state and the regions have already harvested over the last 20 years,” Simas says.