From crisis to career: Chamber charts path for Tallahassee to turn around jobs report

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Two dozen program directors, business leaders and others gathered Tuesday to dive into what’s working and still needed to build out Leon County’s talent pipeline and declare victory over what Chamber of Commerce officials have called a years-long “jobs crisis.”

The “Tallahassee Data Hub Roundtable” event was part of a statewide tour discussions hosted by the Florida Chamber Foundation, which is hosting similar events in cities like Jacksonville, Orlando and Fort Myers for the rest of the year.

In addition, the Foundation launched the Florida Talent Center Data Hub, a new platform designed to “empower decision-makers with essential insights for improving Florida’s talent pipeline,” according to the organization.

The site’s launch comes as Leon County continues to struggle with efforts to create enough jobs to inch toward a lofty goal of adding between 14,000 and 25,000 new jobs by 2030 to remain competitive.

Leon County took a hit in 2024 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.

Several programs could be encouraging toward reaching the goal, said Rachel Ludwig, vice president of Talent Development for the Future of Work at the Florida Chamber Foundation. It’s revising an existing resource called the “Top 30 High Demand Careers,” which targets specific workforce regions that are deemed “high growth, high replacement careers.”

“I think using that resource, along with our data hub information to guide learners into the right postsecondary programming and apprenticeship opportunities is key,” Ludwig said. “We need the business community to be a partner, alongside our education community to provide those work-based learning experiences.”

Much of the roundtable discussions focused on early education, the public school system and post-secondary education, along with other issues like childcare costs and workforce opportunities for previously convicted men and women reentering the workforce.

For Leon County, Ludwig said several data points like reading scores were improving or consistent.

“I think that’s a testament to all of the hard work that’s happening across all of our schools and post-secondary education systems and our early learning systems that are actually preparing learners to be ready for kindergarten,” Ludwig said.

High-school graduation rates continue to be a “red” colored area on the Chamber’s scoreboard, meaning the 85.1% graduation rate is an area for improvement.

A few takeaways from the Florida Chamber’s roundtable discussion

Lively Technical College Director BJ Van Camp said there’s great value in apprenticeships and stressed the need for more businesses to consider using them.

During a panel discussion, she offered examples of businesses that expressed a desire to retain a certain segment of their workforce and chose to explore apprenticeships as a means with an “earn and learn” approach.

“It’s employer initiated and they turn to Lively to figure out the technical training,” Van Camp said. “So, we work very closely with business and industry.”

She said one “gold star” example would be the trade school’s HVAC apprenticeship program, which was launched as a direct result of several local businesses getting together and creating an agreement amongst each other to foster training.

“Then they came to Lively, and we worked with their employees over the course of three years,” she said. “When you have that level of investment, can you imagine how that employees feels? They feel valued … and they feel like they have a pathway to continue their work in this community.”

Career centers in public high schools

Every year at graduation, Leon County School Board Member Marcus Nicolas said he and his colleges shake the hands of graduating seniors and ask, “What’s next?”

Many of them reply with shrugged shoulders or an “I don’t know,” said Nicolas, adding how the response is both saddening and concerning.

“They’ve now matriculated four years through high school and about 12 years through our K-12 system, and they have no idea where they’re going to go next,” he said. “What kind of engagement, exposures and exploratory programs have we been providing them that either one, they didn’t know about, or two, they didn’t take advantage of?”

Nicolas, who attended the roundtable discussion, said one effective way to boost the talent pipeline is by putting career centers in school. With this effort, there’s a dedicated person on campus to help students navigate what’s next.

This, he said, differs from a guidance counselor who’s tasked to get students academically through school. Nicolas said a career-oriented person helps students understand options on careers and how to achieve them.

The district is hiring someone to serve as a career center employee at Leon High School. Plans are underway to do the same thing at Godby High School, which is located in the 32304 zip code, designated as the poorest zip code in the state of Florida.

Leon County’s absenteeism in public schools creates opportunity for outreach

Post pandemic, chronic absenteeism is a major issue in many communities, including Leon County.

Absenteeism refers to students who’ve been absent from school for 21 days or more. Ludwig said some Florida districts are seeing 35% to 40% of their students fall into absenteeism, said Ludwig, who called the trend “alarming.”

The Chamber’s data hub map shows Leon County’s absenteeism is 24%, which Ludwig described as “pretty high, if you think about it.”

“So that’s something to think about,” she said. “What do we need to do to get that number where we want it to be as a community so that students are not missing as much school?”

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

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Florida Chamber hosts Data Hub Roundtable event in Tallahassee