Maybe it's easier to forget what the local jobs picture was just seven years ago, as a major U.S. recession and cutbacks at the Kennedy Space Center gripped Brevard County.
It was painful, and it looked like this in early 2010: Nearly 31,000 people had no jobs and the unemployment rate was 11.8 percent. The labor force had shrunk to 259,295.
Here's what it looks like Labor Day 2017: The unemployment rate is 4.4 percent and about 12,000 people, out of a work force of 273,698, are jobless.
The current local labor force is significantly higher than the peak of 265,336 reached in July 2006.
All of this is quite a turnaround for Brevard. And it's a jobs rebound driven mostly by higher-tech, higher-paying jobs in aerospace, aviation, engineering and manufacturing.
"This is a true economic development recovery story," said Lynda Weatherman, president and CEO of the Economic Development Commission of Florida's Space Coast. "I don't know where this is happening elsewhere."
If anything the local job picture shows a community that didn't lay down in times of adversity. Educators and community and business leaders in the area stubbornly stuck to a strategy of encouraging — and aggressively recruiting — key industries like aerospace and aviation which lined up with Brevard's moniker "The Space Coast."
Ironically, just last Thursday, the first graduating class from Eastern Florida State College’s new aviation maintenance technician program received their certificates from an FAA-approved airframe and power plant (A&P) program, based at the college’s Aviation Center at Orlando Melbourne International Airport.
"This is an incredible time to be coming into the job market," said Lanny Schott, director of Aviation Programs at EFSC, "because companies are searching for qualified employees like them."
The program at EFSC, as well as the strong aviation program at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, is designed to be a pipeline to provide skilled workers to the area's growing aviation presence. That includes companies like Embraer, AAR Airlift and STS Aviation Group. The latter recently acquired the assets of AeroMod International to launch a new business known as STS Mod Center at Orlando Melbourne International's 14,500 square foot,, state-of-the-art hangar facility.
"The aviation and aerospace industry is growing right outside my window air side," said Greg Donovan, executive director at Orlando Melbourne International. "We can’t add parking spaces fast enough to keep up with their growth."
Weatherman noted that high-tech landscape in Brevard has developed into two geographical book ends: Aviation and defense-related companies like Harris Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp. in the southern end of Brevard, while the central and northern part of the counties are bulking up with aerospace ventures like Blue Orion, SpaceX and the satellite venture, OneWeb.
"It's starting to sizzle," Weatherman said, "People want to know what's happening here."
However, Weatherman noted it's not a time to breathe a sigh of relief because of the job gains. Other communities and other states are very hawkish in going after the same high-tech manufacturing industries that Brevard is pursuing.
And those areas are scoring some important victories.
In June, for example, Blue Origin, the spaceflight company started by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, announced said it would manufacture its BE-4 engine in a $200 million, state-of-the art production facility to be built in Alabama’s Rocket City. Alabama officials reportedly offered economic incentives of up $39 million incentive package and in return will get about 350 high-tech manufacturing jobs.
One hope locally — and maybe it was a little far fetched — was that Bezos would have located the engine manufacturing operation on the Space Coast where it's building two versions of its New Glenn rockets.
"One thing about this industry," Weatherman said, "is that you can never, ever rest."
March 29, 2019, 7:36 p.m.
March 28, 2019, 6:40 p.m.