Lee County's economic growth leads the nation

Fort Myers News-Press, November 17, 2004

By Tim Engstrom

Lee County's economic growth tops the rest of the nation's 200 largest urban areas, according to a national ranking by the Milken Institute.

The Milken Institute, a nonprofit California-based economic think tank founded by philanthropist and fallen financier Michael Milken, will publish the Best Performing Cities list today. The Fort Myers/Cape Coral metropolitan area ranked third on the list last year.

"The best advertising is what other people say about you, so this is just great for us," said Regina Smith, executive director of the Lee County Economic Development Office. "We tend to have a strong, stable economy over time, and we continue to stay strong despite challenges in the national economy."

Five Florida metropolitan areas ranked in the top 10, and Naples checks in at No. 15.

The ranking is based on a formula that includes growth in the number of jobs and the total earnings from those jobs from 1997 to 2002, plus gains from 2002 to 2003 and other factors.

"The Fort Myers area consistently ranked near the top across the board in all categories and that was the key to the top rating," said Ross DeVol, director of regional economics for Milken.

For example, Lee County ranked fifth overall on job growth over the past five years, with a 20 percent gain, and third overall in year-over-year job gains with a 3.7 percent increase.

The nation averaged just a 3.7 percent gain over the five years studied and actually lost jobs in the year-over-year comparison.

"Fort Myers and Florida as a whole really benefit because there is less dependence on manufacturing," DeVol said. "With the severe downturn of manufacturing nationwide, cities that had a large concentration of manufacturing have really suffered."

Lee County was fifth overall in both wage gains over five years and year-over-year wage growth.

"That says that Fort Myers has had a mix of higher quality, higher paying jobs over the past five years than it had in the early '90s," DeVol said.

In fact, the relatively high-paying professional and business services sector — architects, engineers, legal services, company management and so on — has been the fastest-growing sector in the county.

The overall jobs growth verifies what workers at the Fort Myers Career and Service Center have been seeing, with orders for new jobs coming in at a steady clip, said Barbara Hartman, employer services representative at the center.

In recent weeks, the center has hosted human resources representatives from The Home Depot, Target, Federal Express and UPS, all of which were expanding operations here.

"A ranking like this is just a boost of adrenaline for everyone," Hartman said.

Milken has released the list for six years.

This is the second year it has done so independent of Forbes magazine.