Tampa Overview

The Tampa job market and economy were hit hard during the recession -- particularly by the national housing crisis, which caused the area’s overdeveloped real estate market to collapse. Spurred by attractive investments, improved business conditions and fabulous weather, Tampa has begun to recover and its 1.3 million workers are expected to see measured growth.

Tampa Job Opportunities

Located on Florida’s west coast, Tampa has a strong tourism business due to its warm weather and culturally diverse population. The region has an expanding mix of businesses, from technology to international trade. Tampa also has a growing presence in life sciences, nanotechnology, aviation and aerospace, and homeland security and defense. With a high percentage of seniors making up Tampa’s population, healthcare is another important component of the area economy.

Trade, transportation and utilities dominate Tampa employment followed by the professional/business services, education/health services and government sectors. After excessive declines during the recession, most industries have recently reported solid growth. One exception is construction, which has reported only two months of expansion -- August 2011 and September 2011 -- in more than five years. In fact, construction jobs in Tampa dropped nearly in half, from 95,000 employed in 2006 to only 46,500 in 2012.

Tampa Employment Trends

Employment conditions in Tampa have improved considerably since the depths of the recession. The area’s unemployment rate, which peaked at more than 12 percent in 2010, has since fallen below 10 percent for the first time since April 2009. Tampa payrolls declined for three years before showing strong improvement in 2011 and 2012. While it dropped slightly in 2012, the volume of online job opportunities has been steadily expanding and is close to prerecession levels.

Tampa jobs are expected to increase 0.8 percent between Q2 2012 and Q2 2013, below the 1.3 percent growth expected in the US job supply, Moody’s Analytics forecasts.