Here’s why Jacksonville is the No. 2 hottest jobs market
Writer: Pablo Marquez
June 2024 — The labor market in Jacksonville is booming, driven by a large amount of business growth, relocations, and expansion to the area that is creating a high supply of jobs.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Jacksonville ranked as the second hottest job market in the United States in 2023. The WSJ carried out a study with Moody’s Analytics in which 380 U.S. metropolitan cities were ranked based on five employment indicators. The measured factors were: the unemployment rate, the labor-force participation rate, job growth, labor-force growth and wage growth.
Jacksonville ranked second only to Salt Lake City, and ahead of Orlando at No. 3, Tampa at No. 4, Oklahoma City at No. 5, and Miami at No. 6. Considering that the three largest metropolitan areas in the state of Florida are placed in the Top 6 of a ranking that measures 380 cities in the United States, this is indicative not only of Jacksonville’s growth, but also of the Sunshine State as a whole.
The WSJ study is conducted on a yearly basis, and Jacksonville jumped from third place in 2022 to second place in 2023. This is the fifth year that the WSJ has conducted the analysis, and the 2023 ranking was based on data from the previous year.
According to the report, Jacksonville’s elevated ranking and exponential growth over the years is mainly due to various companies relocating to Northeastern Florida. In fact, Jacksonville was the No.1 major city for corporate relocations from 2022 to 2023, according to data from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). There are more than 150 corporate, regional and divisional headquarters operating in the Jacksonville region.
It’s not just corporate entities moving into Jacksonville, since the area has everything from Fortune 500 companies to innovative startups. Some of the most notable relocations and expansions in the past few years include companies such as Dun & Bradstreet, Paysafe, Johnson & Johnson Vision, and Redwire Space.
“Looking back to 2023, we directly brought 2,500 new jobs. It also had the spin-off of 2,600 additional jobs. So, for every direct job there’s also indirect jobs coming in,” said Aundra Wallace, president of the JAXUSA Partnership division of the JAX Chamber, pointing out that workers from both the higher and lower end of the economic ladder had benefited from corporate relocations.
With the growth, expansion, and relocation of multiple companies in the area comes a rise in the number of new jobs available. According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in April 2024, the civilian labor force is composed of about 846,700 people, of whom 819.400 are employed and 27,300 are unemployed. This data shows an unemployment rate of about 3.2%, which places Jacksonville in the middle compared to the unemployment rates of the main 389 metropolitan areas in the United States.
It’s also important to note that the civilian labor force in Jacksonville has been increasing at a steady rate for the past three decades. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the civilian labor force in Jacksonville has almost doubled from 470,000 people in 1992 to 840,000 in 2023.
According to Dream Finders Homes, the top industries in Jacksonville are healthcare, finance and insurance, logistics and transportation, and technology. Meanwhile, Find Your JAX indicates that at the moment there are more than 3,000 new jobs available in Jacksonville’s industries of advanced manufacturing, financial services, life sciences, technology services, transportation and logistics, and corporate operations.
Jacksonville has taken great measures to create a booming business environment, investing in large infrastructure projects and providing tax incentives and workforce development for businesses that are interested in entering the local market.
In addition to a thriving labor market, Find Your JAX indicates that Jacksonville also attracts businesses and workers alike due to a lower cost of living in comparison to the U.S. average, Florida’s zero personal state income tax, a top-notch higher education system, and an elevated quality of life. All of these factors make employee wages more competitive, meaning that each worker gets more out of their paycheck.
In support of all the factors that create this attractive labor market, Kyle Baltuch, executive vice president of the Florida Chamber Foundation, said that Jacksonville’s geographic location and its maritime port are also key in attracting corporate and business activity to the area. “When you look at some of those comparative advantages like transportation, you look at some of those comparative advantages like being able to get a shipping container straight onto the Atlantic immediately, that’s a value and that’s something that businesses are talking about,” said Baltuch.
