Recession Recovery Study Ends, Advocacy Begins!

The JCCI Recession Recovery Study was released to the Northeast Florida community on June 15, 2011. To download a copy of the study please CLICK HERE.


If you would like to join the citizens who will advocate for the implementation of the study's recommendations, please contact Steve Rankin at JCCI - phone: 395-3052 | email: steve@jcci.org.


The first meeting for the Recession Recovery and Beyond Implementation Task Force will take place on Wednesday, June 29, 2011 at JCCI from 11:30 am to 1:00 pm.

Business ownership as a means of overcoming poverty and creating jobs in underserved communities

Grameen America provides small loans, known as “microloans” and other financial services to individuals living below the U.S. poverty line who want to start or grow a small business. Grameen America relies on the Grameen lending model developed over 30 years by Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. http://www.grameenamerica.com/

Project Enterprise is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to support and develop entrepreneurs and small businesses in under-resourced communities in New York City. By providing micro loans, business development services and networking opportunities, Project Enterprise helps entrepreneurs increase their standard of living, create jobs for their communities, and build financial assets.  http://www.projectenterprise.org/index.html

Funding An Improved Quality of Life – Look at Oklahoma City

In the early 1990s, the leaders of Oklahoma City were faced with a decision: to compete or retreat. The city was in the wake of the oil bust and had lost a bid for a United Airlines maintenance facility. The decision was made to compete, and a visionary project was launched - one that changed the face of Oklahoma City forever. That plan is Metropolitan Area Projects (MAPS), an ambitious program that's one of the most aggressive and successful public-private partnerships ever undertaken in the U.S. The amount spent in this public/private partnership exceeds $3 billion.

MAPS was funded by a temporary one-cent sales tax approved by city voters in December 1993. The tax expired on July 1, 1999. During the 66 months it was in effect, more than $309 million was collected. In addition, the deposited tax revenue earned about $54 million in interest. All of the public projects were funded by a self-imposed, five-year, one-cent sales tax. The tax was extended by a vote of the people for six months to cover cost increases during construction. The tax is complete and the projects are all debt-free.

In December 2009, a record number of Oklahoma City voters went to the polls and voted YES to continue Oklahoma City's bright future through the $777 million MAPS 3 initiative. MAPS 3 includes eight projects that will work to increase the quality of life for all Oklahoma City citizens, as well as create economic growth through private investment and the creation of jobs. The eight projects include improvements to the Oklahoma River, 57 miles of new walking and biking trails, improvements to State Fair Park, sidewalks, senior health and wellness aquatic centers, a new convention center, a world-class destination park and a modern downtown streetcar.

The temporary one-cent sales tax for MAPS 3 began April 1, 2010 and will be in effect for 93 months.

For more information about MAPS go to http://www.okcchamber.com/page.asp?atomid=290

Training scholarships to match employee skills with employer needs

Retraining to acquire skills for in demand jobs is one solution for reducing unemployment. While it may seem as though no one is hiring, in fact there is sometimes a disconnect between the skills employers need and the skills workers have. This WorkSource Program, which is coming to an end, was funded by the The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  

Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce priorities for 2011

After four hours of strategic planning, economic development and creating jobs emerged as the overriding theme for the Regional Chamber’s 42 directors. According to Chamber Chair Hugh Greene, the group did not develop any specific job creation, but agreed to focus the organization's energies in the following areas.

The port of Jacksonville. “There is a very strong consensus that we need to focus on JaxPort because of the opportunity the Jacksonville port brings in terms of being an economic engine for job creation and good-paying jobs for our community,” said Greene. “This is a strategic area that is laden with opportunity, but still also faces some fairly formidable challenges, so we really are making this a very high priority.”

Downtown development. “We believe that for the City to move to another level, again in the context of economic development, we really need to start the revitalization of Downtown,” said Greene. “We will work in concert with the Jacksonville Civic Council and elected leaders to help make the business community aware of the importance of the issue as well as the general population, and also support an implementation plan.”

Greene said Mayor John Peyton appointed a task force last year that has been working to determine how best to develop downtown. “We await that plan.”

Education and workforce development. Greene said the chamber will work closely with the Duval County School Board and board Chair W.C. Gentry. “There are a lot of things at work with the school board as far as opportunities,” he said. “The whole issue of public education related to the development of the work force is critical.”

Advocacy with elected leaders. “We have a unique situation with the chamber working with a brand new mayor and many new members of the City Council, and we need to foster a strong working relationship to achieve the goals of economic development,” said Greene. He wants the chamber to “make sure they are aware of the issues and challenges.”

Small and second-stage businesses. “Those businesses do contain most of the jobs in our community, but at the same time, it’s those jobs where the economy has had its major impact. They are the heart and soul of the chamber,” he said.

“We want to make sure we bring value for them and even embark on some initiatives, such as encouraging business purchasing from each other in the business community.”

The Jacksonville Jaguars. “We concluded that we cannot let up on our efforts” to support the area’s NFL team, he said. “We still believe that we need to strongly encourage the business community to be supportive of the Jaguars, so we will keep that focus as well.”

Read the entire article, "Chamber’s strategic retreat sets 2011 goals", at the Financial News and Daily Record online http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=532774

Florida is one of the most pro-business states in the nation

Gov. Rick Scott and top legislative leaders spent much of last year talking about the need to make Florida more pro-business, but the state dominates a new report listing the 20 cities with the lowest operating costs and best business climate.

In a ranking of the 20 cheapest cities to set up shop, Florida appears five times, with Orlando claiming the top spot. Jacksonville finished third, and Broward County ranked 20th. Tampa Bay was seventh, and Palm Beach County came in at 16th.

No other state placed more than one city on the list of top 20.

"Florida is one of the most pro-business states in the nation," said John Boyd Jr., a principal with BizCosts.com, the New Jersey-based company that did the analysis earlier this month. "And it has been for some time."

BizCosts compared the annual costs of operating a typical corporate headquarters in 55 cities across the U.S., weighing factors such as labor costs, tax burden, utility costs and travel costs. For its model, it calculated those expenses for a 75,000-square-foot facility employing 300 people.

It found that Orlando had the lowest cost of the 55 cities studied, totaling about $19.9 million a year. Jacksonville was slightly more — $20.1 million a year – and Broward County (home to Fort Lauderdale) was $21.6 million. New York City had the highest cost, at $28.5 million a year.

Florida cities benefited from relatively low labor costs, tax burden, land and construction costs.

The report comes a month after the Small Business&Entrepreneurship Council placed Florida sixth overall — and second among big states — in a ranking of the best places to run a small company.

With the state facing record unemployment levels — a 12 percent jobless rate, with 1.1 million people out of work — state political leaders built campaigns around the need to bring more jobs to Florida. Central to that was the implication that the state had not done enough to accommodate business or, in some cases, fostered an adversarial relationship with the business community.

University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith, who called Florida "very business-friendly," said lawmakers should try to streamline rules and make the state as pro-business as possible.

"There are other dimensions to attracting business," he said, "things like quality education, a skilled work force. And that's the sort of thing you may need to spend money on."

Read the full article, “Orlando is cheapest place to open business, report says” by Jim Stratton at the Orlando Sentinel Online http://bit.ly/eHOsdQ  

Entrepreneurs are job creators

The hard work of putting America back to work will be done by entrepreneurs, not the leaders of the biggest companies in the nation and the heads of big unions.

According to the Census Bureau, nearly all net job creation in the U.S. since 1980 has been generated by firms operating less than five years.

Commerce Department data show that small companies represent 99.1 percent of all employer firms (a firm is an aggregation of all establishments owned by a parent company, even in multiple locations.). They pay nearly 45 percent of U.S. private payroll and have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually over the past decade.

A few start-ups from the last century may be familiar: Disney, Burger King, Fed-Ex, CNN and Microsoft all started during a period of economic downturn. Today, each of these companies employs thousands of people in the U.S. and abroad.

Recent research shows that more than half of the 2009 Fortune 500 companies were launched during a recession or bear market. In 2002, when the tech bubble burst Google was a mysterious start-up, algorithm-based business - little known and lesser understood. Today, Google employs 20,000 people worldwide.

So the question is how can we foster the next Google? Policy-makers can't predict breakthrough technologies, but they can create an environment that will encourage innovation. How to start?

First, provide further access to capital. Access to capital is the lifeblood of small businesses. Helping fledgling companies grow fuels the economy from the bottom up.

Second, welcome immigrants who are job generators. Increasingly venture capitalists, angel investors and innovators are advocating a "start-up visa" offered to immigrant entrepreneurs who want to start a company in the United States. In 2008, nearly 40 percent of technology company founders were foreign-born; 52 percent of Silicon Valley company founders were foreign-born, including the founders of Google, Yahoo, eBay and Intel, to name a few.

Third, match funds for early investors. We have channeled billions of dollars to preserve "too big to fail" institutions. Why not make federal matching dollars available to catalyze smart investment in next generation businesses?

Read the entire article, "Job creation? Look to entrepreneurs" by Amy Wilkinson at CNN online
http://bit.ly/hMvEVJ