Can the local workforce fill Amazon’s needs?

When Verizon and Deloitte opened major offices in the Orlando area in 2014 and 2015, they each set out to hire about 1,000 skilled employees.

They weren’t low-wage jobs; Deloitte was opening an IT center, and Verizon was opening finance and accounting hub. Skeptics thought it could be a tall order for Central Florida’s labor force, but both offices announced additional hiring soon afterward — Verizon added another 100 openings, while Deloitte expanded by 800 more hires.

Executives with those companies have praised the region’s labor force and it’s relatively lower labor costs, as well as its huge supply of college graduates and the fact that getting people to move

to Orlando is not a hard sell.

Those attributes will need to be highlighted by local and state governments if the region wants to be a serious contender in the competition for Amazon’s second headquarters, the region’s business leaders say. The headquarters could eventually employ 50,000 people. Walt Disney World, the region’s largest employer, has about 70,000 employees.

As an Internet-focused company, Amazon needs skilled tech employees. Its corporate headquarters would also be expected to employ well-paid executives, such as accountants and human resources professionals. The online retail giant already recruits regularly at University of Central Florida, along with many other Fortune 500 companies, said Lynn Hansen, executive director of career services at the university.

“There’s a strong capacity for talented labor in the region, and it’s a great place to live so we can recruit from other regions,” said Chester Kennedy, a former Lockheed Martin executive who is leading the new high-tech BRIDG research center near Kissimmee.

BRIDG and its surrounding 500 acres are being marketed as NeoCity, a high-tech hub. Local officials are looking at NeoCity, Lake Nona and even downtown Orlando as possible locations if Amazon wanted to move here.

NeoCity and Lake Nona would fit Amazon’s stated criteria of an urban or suburban location with the potential to attract and retain strong technical talent and communities that “think big and creatively.”

Many cities with a population of more than 1 million are submitting bids for the Amazon HQ2. The Seattle Times, where Amazon’s first headquarters is, said more than 100 cities are vying.

One detractor for Orlando’s chances in the bidding war was a writer at Brookings, who declared, “Smaller metros with more limited technical worker pools like Las Vegas, Orlando, Riverside [Calif.] fall near the bottom of the list.”

But a number of reasons keep Orlando’s workforce from being a strike against the region, said Sean Snaith, an economist at UCF.

“I don’t think any place under consideration has a closet full of idle workers that could fill all the positions Amazon would require,” Snaith said. “But we do have the second-largest university in the country here producing graduates, and big universities nearby, like University of Florida.” He said Orlando has much lower labor costs than major cities, like New York or San Francisco.

UCF alone awarded 15,685 degrees in 2016, for example. The university worked with Deloitte when the global business consulting firm opened its IT center in Lake Mary.

Central Florida’s pool of tech workers has a lot of big names. Lockheed Martin, for example, has 7,000 people in Orlando. The city also has a major hub for training and simulation technology. It has several nationally ranked schools for video game design, and the Electronic Arts studio in Maitland. Disney World and Universal Orlando are known for hospitality positions, but they also employee tech-savvy people. And the nearby Space Coast is booming again, with SpaceX renovating launch pads and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin building a rocket factory.

BRIDG itself is a plus for the region, Kennedy said. It is aiming to generate or spin off up to 20,000 high-paying jobs by designing microelectronics for sensors, fiber optics and nanotechnology.

There’s been a major effort by local schools to beef up the pipeline of tech talent coming out of high schools. Osceola County School District is fast-tracking a new Science, Tech, Engineering and Math (STEM) high school at NeoCity, with plans to recruit a class of about 120 for fall 2018.

“We’re on a very aggressive schedule,” superintendent Debra Pace said. “"The talent pipeline is definitely a critical piece of that economic development.”

Pace said the high school will include hands-on work with BRIDG professionals.

Orlando’s effort is coordinated by the Orlando Economic Partnership and its president, Tim Giuliani. He said Amazon is already connected to the region because it recently started work on a distribution center near Orlando International Airport.

“The biggest hurdle we face is just the perception or lack of awareness nationally about Orlando’s talent pool and all we have to offer,” Giuliani said.

And Florida’s tight fist on business incentives poses a concern, Snaith said. Republicans in the Legislature recently cut back a state fund for incentives, although some lawmakers said they may still approve incentive packages for truly exception projects that bring high-paying jobs. But Giuliani said he believes the Legislature is united on funding for infrastructure and job training that could sweeten the pot for Amazon.

“I would hope the state could come up with a package for a rare event like an Amazon headquarters. In terms of economic development projects, this is a unicorn. Amazon is major force in the future of the U.S. economy,” Snaith said.