If you’ve been tracking Tampa Bay’s economic growth over the past decade or so, you know that talent is one of the key drivers of our success. The quality of our workforce has attracted hundreds of companies to our market and fueled the growth of thousands more. Even more impressive than the caliber of Hillsborough County’s workforce is its productivity. We rank #1 among Florida’s major economies for Gross Regional Product (GRP) per worker – ahead of Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, Broward and Orange Counties. GRP per worker is not a measure of how many jobs a market has — it is the level of economic value each job adds to the economy. It captures the skill intensity, industry mix, and productivity of a regional economy in a single number. Hillsborough County’s number says: this is a place where talent creates disproportionate value. We are emerging as Florida’s center of gravity for high-value economic activity — where companies don’t just grow, they scale intelligently.
We recently promoted Jennifer
Burrington to Vice President of Research & Strategy to direct our Business Intelligence and Economic Research Catalyst Initiative. This initiative is one of four in our new strategic plan. Its goal is to establish the Tampa Bay EDC as a leading source of information about regional economic issues and our market’s competitiveness. Using Lightcast’s labor market intelligence tools, Jennifer has begun diving deeper into all aspects of our talent pool to publish a series of reports. These will help us better understand our current labor force and the talent shortages we can anticipate in the future so that we can formulate a plan to mitigate them.
In her first report, to be published next month, Jennifer produced a snapshot of Hillsborough County’s high value economic activity that concisely delivers the kind of data site selectors want to see. Here are some highlights:
- Hillsborough County generates nearly 10% of Florida’s $1.6 trillion Gross Regional Product (GRP). Florida has 67 counties, so it’s fair to say that we punch above our weight.
- Hillsborough ranks #3 in the state by total GRP output while also leading in productivity, business formation growth, and job growth that outpaces the statewide average.
- High GRP per worker is a fingerprint of knowledge-intensive sectors — health tech, cybersecurity, financial services, and advanced manufacturing. Tampa’s number confirms the economy is competing on expertise and innovation, not cost.
- Hillsborough’s job growth rate from 2018–2025 (+15.3%) outpaced the Florida statewide rate (+13.7%) — confirming the county is not simply riding a rising tide but growing its share of Florida’s economy.
This is not cyclical growth — it is structural improvement, driven by a stronger industry mix and a more productive workforce.
The recent wave of top tier rankings that Tampa and Hillsborough have earned underscores this.
In the past year, Tampa has been ranked the #1 city in the U.S. for foreign businesses (Financial Times), the #1 best large city to start a business (WalletHub), and one of Site Selection Magazine’s top 5 markets in the U.S. for corporate headquarter projects.
These rankings are hard-won and we have no intention of slipping. We know that the regions that will ultimately win the next decade of corporate investment won’t be the ones with the most workers; they’ll be the ones where each worker generates the most impact. And a high-impact workforce is exactly what we’ve got.
Our team is collaborating regionally to better understand our talent gaps, forecast shortages, and shifts that are transforming our target industries. I look forward to periodically updating you on what we learn and the actions the EDC will take to address them as we progress.
Craig
