Over 56,000 online job openings available for high skill positions; up more than 15 percent over the year

 Today, Governor Rick Scott announced more than 56,405 online job postings in STEM related fields for January 2013. Over-the-year job postings are up 15.2 percent compared to January 2012.

Governor Scott said, “We’ve made incredible progress in growing jobs for Florida families, and STEM fields have played a key role in that effort. In the four years before I took office, we lost over 800,000 jobs and the unemployment rate was 11.1 percent. Since I took office two years ago, Florida’s unemployment rate has dropped to 8.1 percent, and we have added around 200,000 jobs. We must continue this progress and provide our children with great job opportunities. Preparing students for careers in STEM is the key to achieving that goal. With online job posting for STEM jobs up by more than 15 percent since last year, we now have tens of thousands of opportunities for Florida families to find great jobs here in the Sunshine State.”

According to the Help Wanted OnLine data series from The Conference Board, the number of STEM-related job postings in Florida in January 2013 increased by more than 7,432 from the previous January. STEM labor demand in Florida bottomed out in January 2010 at 38,024 ads and has increased by 18,381 openings since then (+48.3 percent).

Major occupational groups with the most online ads in January 2013 were healthcare practitioners and technical occupations; computer and mathematical occupations; and business and financial operations occupations. Online job demand for STEM was strongest in the large metro areas, led by Miami-Dade, Hillsborough, Broward, Orange, Palm Beach and Duval counties.

STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and STEM-related jobs are ones that are considered high wage and high skill. Workers in STEM occupations use science and math to drive our state’s innovation and competitiveness by generating new ideas, new companies and new industries.

The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity combines the state’s economic, workforce and community development efforts. This new approach helps expedite economic development projects to fuel job creation in competitive communities. For more information, including valuable resources for employers and job seekers, please visit www.floridajobs.org.