The Watercooler

Tampa Bay’s hiring market is quiet. A stronger 2027 will change that.

Each month, a topic usually jumps out of my conversations with employers that leads me to dive under the hood into what is driving the Tampa Bay employment space. This month, what has stood out is how quiet those conversations have become. In fact, it’s become too quiet.

To me, it feels like the Tampa Bay area is collectively holding its breath. That point was driven home when I was out at a community event in Tampa last week when a group of business leaders, including me, compared notes.  In our conversation a question came up about how business was for all of us; the general consensus was that 2026 lacked consistency.

Obviously, every business is different. But many of the local businesses I talk to are simply treading water. Hiring is focused on immediate needs, not growth. Ironically, the email I received from WalletHub titled the “Best & Worst States for Jobs in 2026” also made that point:

  • Overall rank for Florida: 47th
  • Job Opportunities: 38th
  • Employment Growth: 50th
  • Job Security: 42nd

Those Florida rankings caught my attention, but Tampa Bay is what matters to me. So, I dug deeper into our local data to see whether the numbers reflected what I have been experiencing—and what it might mean for our local business community in 2027.

The Resumes Are Coming. The Right Fits Aren’t

The most recent data shows that the Tampa Bay MSA workforce has expanded by 0.5% overall this year. However, in Pinellas, I see that there hasn’t been any net labor force growth. Essentially our Tampa Bay labor force is flat. The influx of out of state migration that has helped find new candidates with different skill sets and experiences in the past is not happening now.

What I have heard the most from businesses this year is that application volume is up substantially. But candidate quality has dropped just as sharply because people are applying for roles they aren’t qualified for. Further, and especially with the rise of AI in 2026, identifying top talent has become much more difficult as so many resumes look the same today.

Your Next Hire May Not Be Who You Expected

The median age in Pinellas County is now 49.2 years old, 10 full years older than the national median of 39.2. In Pinellas, 27.5% of the population is 65 or older. Importantly, the specific in-migration rate for young adults ages 25 to 34 to Tampa Bay dropped to 8.43%.

For the longest time, local businesses tried to get ahead of this trend by hiring less-experienced candidates with the expectation they could groom them to replace retiring staff. Unfortunately, that strategy, especially if we start hiring due to growth, is going to become even more challenging because the sheer volume of available talent in this market is age 40 and older, not the 25–34 demographic.

The Sunshine Discount of Florida Has Disappeared

Wages in the Tampa Bay MSA still sit roughly 8% below the national baseline across operational, management, and technical roles. I know many businesses in the Tampa Bay area have aggressively raised wages in the last few years, and some believe they are tapped out. If this is you, what I recommend to clients is readjusting your focus: bring in someone with less experience, and put a training program in place to get them where you need them to be. Keep in mind, though, that one of the bigger problems Florida has right now is that the people moving into the state are closer to retirement than college graduation. For that candidate pool, I find their salary expectations to generally be more fixed.

It is routine for us to take calls, especially during winter, from people who want to get out of the snow. But once we start talking wage ranges, the reality check sets in. Additionally, I was in a meeting with a senior leader of one of Tampa Bay’s largest employers last month, and they were talking specifically about this issue. They pointed out that recruiting senior executives from California used to be an easy sell, but with our steep rise in housing costs and general living expenses, that advantage has evaporated, even with low taxes.

More Business – But Who Will Do the Work?

My expectation for the Tampa Bay market, based on what I am reading and seeing, is that next year will be stronger than 2026, but not without its challenges.

What You Can Do Today for 2027

First, take a hard look at your pay bands. Now is the time to do that—especially if your growth plan will need to rely on attracting out-of-state talent. Your competition isn’t just Tampa Bay; it’s the national standards you are fighting against.

Second, take a good look at whom you may be overlooking. There tends to be a preference for younger employees based on the belief that they will have a better handle on learning and adapting to new technologies. But when you look at the ages in our local market, we have a much smaller pool of younger employees to draw from. Because they are heavily sought after, they will command a premium.

Third, look at retention today. Better hiring conditions next year could make keeping today’s team more difficult. To be clear, I’m not just talking about counteroffers. Instead, I am suggesting you look at what can be done now to address burnout, improve job enjoyment, and maintain engagement. Keeping a top employee is going to clearly be beneficial to businesses because they will likely be able to avoid the wage premium needed to convince someone else to change roles.

In the day-to-day rush of running a business, it is easy to let the fundamentals get crowded out by immediate emergencies. But as we look toward 2027, the hiring assumptions that worked over the past five years will not benefit you today.

I believe Tampa Bay will have a stronger 2027, and there is real opportunity ahead. But what I wouldn’t assume is that a stronger economy will solve your hiring problems. It may bring more business while making the people you need to handle that business harder to attract and keep.