The New Face of Florida: Professionals are Fueling the State’s Booming Growth
It’s not just retirees seeking warmer weather: Florida’s become one of the biggest booming states in the South — here’s why more Americans are migrating. Professionals are a big part of the pandemic-era growth.
Florida is no longer just for grandparents and retirees, according to a new report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In fact, it recently beat New York as the most jobs of any state — a first since the Bureau began to report these numbers in 1982. Over 400,00 people moved to Florida from July 2021 to July 2022, which was an increase of over 180,000 from the year before. A good portion of the new residents are not just there to relax either.
The Sunshine State ended last year with 9,578,500 non-farming industry jobs, compared to 9,576,100 in the Empire State. While the gap has been closing for a while, it takes some digging to understand why. It’s not as though an obvious guess — pre-retirees riding the pandemic to move south — is a top reason. “Florida is no longer God’s waiting room,” said Craig Studnicky, CEO of ISG World, a real estate firm that specializes in South Florida luxury residential developments.
Studnicky’s wording includes an important clue to who’s driving the growth in Florida: “Young people,” not their grandparents or parents. But if the age demographics are shifting, the pandemic still acted as a catalyst for people of all ages to move south.