New UF Statistics Out On Florida’s Jobs, Crime And Schools

January 16, 2001

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida’s noted quality of life is measured with a yardstick in new University of Florida research into counties with the best schools, most crime, opportunities for hot jobs and other matters important to the way we live.

The newly released Florida Statistical Abstract 2000 from UF’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research has provided researchers, decision-makers and curiosity seekers with the largest collection of data about Florida and its counties for 34 years, said Susan Floyd, the bureau’s coordinator of information and publications services.

Is neighborhood safety a concern? Lafayette County boasted the lowest crime rate per 100,000 population in the state in 1999, while Calhoun County experienced a 64 percent decline over the previous year, the findings show.

On the other hand, Miami-Dade County had the highest crime rate per 100,000 persons (9,094.5), but that represented a 10.9 percent decline in the rate from 1998. Okeechobee County exhibited the greatest increase in crime rate from 1998 (218 percent for a rate of 4,046.8 per 100,000 persons).

Is quality of schools a priority? Students in Seminole County received the highest scores in both the reading and writing sections of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test in 1999, while Jackson County reported the state’s lowest dropout rate.

“‘Quality of life’ is not easily defined nor measured. However, most people agree that socioeconomic factors such as good jobs, affordable housing and property, an abundance of educational facilities and hospitals, reasonable utility rates and prices, and a pleasant environment and climate contribute favorably to their quality of life,” Floyd said.

And residents and businesses may use different criteria in evaluating locations, Floyd said. For example, a person with a family may prefer the wide-open spaces of rural north Florida’s Liberty County, where there are only 10 people per square mile, while someone looking to establish a business may choose densely populated Pinellas County for its potential customer base, with 3,208 persons per square mile, she said.

Even though Pinellas is the most densely populated county, Miami-Dade County, home to nearly 14 percent of the state’s 15.3 million residents, still has the most people, Floyd said.

Statewide, more jobs were added by firms engaged in the supply of business services than in any other industry in 1998. That includes companies engaged in temporary/contract personnel supply, building maintenance/ pest control, data processing and advertising.

That sector, driven primarily by the fast growing, competitive personnel supply industry, is expected to remain on top through 2008, with a projected 58 percent increase in new jobs, Floyd said.

In terms of occupations, the Florida Statistical Abstract calls for computer support specialist jobs to experience the most growth during the next eight years, with a 106 percent increase in new positions.

Because of its size, Miami-Dade reported the highest number of people of any county in the labor force in 1999 (1,045,018), but Seminole County’s labor force participation rate of 90.8 percent topped the state, Floyd said. At 2.1 percent, Alachua and Sarasota counties boasted the state’s lowest unemployment rate for the same period, while Gulf county had the highest at 13.2 percent, she said.

The statistical abstract also found that:

Broward County has the most veterans (129,448) out of the state’s total of 1.7 million.
Hillsborough County, with its nearly 12,000 registered recreational vehicles in 1998-99, appears to be the RV haven of the state.
Miami-Dade has the most recreational boats with just more than 53,000 registered.
“And just in case you haven’t already heard enough about voting in Palm Beach,” Floyd said, “46 percent of Palm Beach County’s 630,966 voters registered as of Feb. 14, 2000, were registered Democrats as compared to 36 percent registered as Republicans.”