INTRODUCTION

Workforce Now is a regional initiative to better understand Southwest Florida’s labor market including employment gaps, specific skills desired, and forecast occupational growth. This is the seventh in a series of Southwest Florida labor market overviews which are updated annually.

The purpose of this updated report is to conduct retrospective and prospective data analysis of information and forecasts from the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity to identify the mix of industries, the industry growth trends, current employment gaps, and the annual projected demand for regional occupations through the year 2026.

The study was started in Summer 2019 and was completed by the end of August of that year. Primary data collection and analysis were conducted by Dr. Christopher Westley and the Regional Economic Research Institute at Florida Gulf Coast University. The final report development, editing, and formatting were supported by the Workforce Now research team. For the purposes of this study, the Southwest Florida region is defined as Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry, and Lee Counties.