Steve Son, competing with more than 1,000 other job seekers at SeaWorld, was relieved to land a position in merchandise sales for the summer. The job pays $6.65 an hour -- the highest starting pay of any Central Florida theme park.
But Son isn't a high-school or college student looking for summer employment. He's a 59-year-old bicycle mechanic who, after five months of puttering around the yard without work, was ready to take just about any job for a paycheck.
Orlando's biggest tourist attractions, bolstered by a stronger-than-expected spring season, are hiring thousands of workers for the summer -- and finding plenty of takers for jobs that pay less than $7 an hour.
But beyond the theme-park gates, the job prospects in Central Florida remain weak, not only in tourism-related businesses such as hotels and restaurants, but also in industries in which the paychecks are much healthier, such as manufacturing and high technology.
As a result, teenagers, college graduates and even older, laid-off workers face one of the bleakest summer-job markets in a decade.
Mike Edge, a 19-year-old college student from Kissimmee, was one of about 350 people who, along with Son, were hired on the spot during SeaWorld's recent job fair. "I came in at 11:30 and got the job by 2:15," Edge said.
But across town, senior programmer Vincent Cruz, 56, is feeling the heat, looking for a high-tech position five months after being laid off by IBM. After sending out 70 resumes, he has landed only one interview.
"There is no rebound, from what I can see," said Cruz, who lives in Longwood. "People are still focusing on the possibility of layoffs."
Luis Perez, a computer-network administrator whose subcontract with the Army's simulation-training command is about to end, said the five people with whom he works are preparing to scatter to at least three other states in search of jobs. After six months of searching in the Orlando area, Perez fears he may have to look elsewhere, too, even though he owns a home in Oviedo, has children in school here and does not want to leave.
"It's very bad. There's just no jobs," said Perez, 45. His unemployed sister-in-law has begun leaving her master's degree off her resume, Perez said, to avoid appearing "overqualified." She's so discouraged she is thinking of returning home to Puerto Rico.
Underlying weakness
Employment experts say the signs of a rebound in the nation's economy have not yet persuaded most companies to begin hiring workers again. The seasonal hiring by SeaWorld, Universal Orlando and Walt Disney World, they say, masks an underlying weakness in the region's job market.
"I still don't see a lot of hiring," said Christine Crews, research director for the Employers Association of Florida, an Orlando-based group that does employment, salary and benefit research for its 600 member companies.
The association's membership includes a mix of manufacturers and service companies, with about 10 percent working in the hospitality sector, which includes attractions. That's the one area, Crews said, "where you're seeing all the hiring."
"Most companies are slow to add staffing until they see better numbers," she said. "It's just a prudent business practice that you see here and elsewhere throughout the country."
The number of jobs in metropolitan Orlando grew less than three-tenths of a percent last year -- its worst showing since the 1990-91 recession. As of April, the latest month for which figures are available, the metro area -- Orange, Seminole, Osceola and Lake counties -- had 10,600 fewer jobs than it had 12 months earlier -- a 1.2 percent decline and the worst showing of any metro area in Florida, said Sue Patterson, statistician with the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation.
During the past two years, the local unemployment rate has jumped from 2.5 percent to 5.1 percent. And local experts don't expect it to peak until later this year -- perhaps as high as 7 percent.
"Anyone who's out there looking for work has more competition," Patterson said. "Orlando's problem was that the tourism industry just got hit so hard" last year. September's terrorist attacks weren't the only reason: Total nonfarm employment in the metro area peaked much earlier, in March 2001, the same month that the country's economic slowdown officially became a recession.
Patterson said Central Florida's large attractions typically hire hundreds or thousands of temporary workers each summer, their peak season, though it's still unclear just how robust this year's vacation-time business will be.
"They had a good Easter and spring break, so I can see why they are a bit more optimistic about hiring," Patterson said.
Crystalyn Jackson, a 16-year-old Dr. Phillips High School student, landed a job pushing a food cart at Universal Studios at one of the company's recent job fairs.
The $6.60-an-hour job isn't a necessity, she said, but it will help her "buy clothes, pay for a car, and help cover expenses like buying a yearbook next year," when she's a senior. Plus "it's fun," she said. "I have friends who work here, and we get free passes to the parks."
Dawn Laken has claim on a job that, under other economic circumstances, a high-school student could fill.
A full-time employee at University Surf & Skate in south Orlando, she would like to be out searching for a job as a buyer with a major surf or beachwear company. But such positions are hard to come by these days, so Laken, 24, who just graduated from the University of Central Florida, has decided for now to stick with the retail job, which she has held for three years.
"I'm looking for a full-time, real-world job, but there aren't a lot out there," she said. "At least staying here, I know when I'll get my next paycheck."
Joe Armstrong, co-owner of University Surf & Skate, said the company's three locations receive at least five resumes a week. He hired four new employees earlier this month, but none were high-schoolers.
"I can afford to be picky," Armstrong said. "This is definitely an employer's market."
College students struggling to land full-time positions or internships are more willing this year to take something temporary, local school officials say.
Corporate recruiting for full-time jobs at UCF is down 40 percent from previous years, said Melanie Parker, director of the university's career-resource center. Last year, Valencia Community College's east-campus placement office received 60 to 70 new job listings a week from area businesses. This year, it's averaging only 20.
"There are a lot of people vying for the same jobs," said Vertrilla Hunt, the east-campus job developer and placement coordinator. "We have graduates, even alumni, looking for short-term positions until they find something else. They're applying for the same jobs as the high-school students."
Summer jobs scarce
For some of those high-schoolers, the summer job search is serious business this year.
Long before she cleaned out her school locker or took her last final exam, Amber Amrhein was looking for full-time work. But it isn't spending money the 18-year-old Bishop Moore High School graduate is after. For Amrhein, there's more at stake.
"Last October, after everything with Sept. 11, my parents told me that I'd have to start helping out," she said. "They were having their own financial problems."
Amrhein, who is saving money for college, has been working after school and on weekends at Jack's Aquarium and Pets, making $5.75 an hour. She's looking for a second job, or one that will allow her to work full
time. "I've probably filled out 20 job applications, maybe more, and I still don't have another job," she said. "I'm worried, but not too much. Eventually, I'll get something. It means more to me." Employment in many of the region's key teen-job categories -- especially lodging, restaurants, and supermarkets -- all remain well below year-ago levels, according to the state's preliminary estimates for April.
Restaurants, for example, had 1,800 fewer jobs, down 2.8 percent from April 2001; food stores reported 1,800 fewer jobs, down 6.2 percent; and hotels had shed 4,600 positions, down 9.5 percent.
Because of relatively high turnover rates, many restaurants, hotels and stores are still hiring. And the decline in the food-store category may be exaggerated because the state doesn't categorize the grocery workers in the growing number of local Wal-Mart and Target "super centers" as food-store employees. Super centers are included in the general-merchandise category, which added 1,200 jobs from April 2001 to April 2002.
Still, a Publix spokesman said the Lakeland-based supermarket chain, the largest in the state and the region, doesn't plan to hire summer help this year. Instead, it will rely on existing employees to pick up extra hours.
Employment bellwether
Temporary-employment agencies are usually the first to see jobs disappear in a downturn and the first to see demand rise during a recovery. And so far in Central Florida, there are scant signs of a recovery, says Herb Ostrach, owner of Five Star temporary staffing in Orlando.
Ostrach said 2001 was the worst year he has seen during 14 years in the business, while 2002 has been "anemic" so far.
"The employment situation in general is not strong, and companies are leery of taking a chance -- even with temps, where they don't have a commitment," said Ostrach, who cut his own staff in 2001 by nearly 40 percent, to 11 people. "Last year was a horror show, just awful."
Nationally, the job picture is a bit brighter heading into the summer season, said Richard Wahlquist, president of the American Staffing Association, which represents temp agencies nationwide.
"We are one of the few sectors showing gains from a year ago," Wahlquist said. April's average daily employment through temporary staffing firms, for example, was up by 66,000 people compared with the same month a year ago. That followed a 60,000-job year-over-year improvement in March and a 10,000-job increase in February.
"We expect a very gradual recovery" from the 2001 recession, Wahlquist said.
Last year, the industry shed 360,000 jobs, falling from 2.54 million jobs on an average day to 2.18 million -- the steepest one-year plunge in its history.
Kat Quast, general manager at the Enzian Theater in Maitland, has hired temporary employees to work next month during the theater's annual film festival. But unlike in past years, only two of the temps will be asked to stay the entire summer.
If there's a silver lining for the region's young job seekers, it's that the very process of pounding the pavement and knocking on doors provides valuable experience that could pay dividends in years to come.
"You never see 'help wanted' signs," said Jessica Hille, a 16-year-old sophomore at Winter Park High School. "When you're looking for a job, you really have to be proactive."
Sarah Hale can be reached at shale@ orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5718. Jerry W. Jackson can be reached at
jwjackson@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5721.
Copyright © 2002, Orlando Sentinel
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