Workforce Development

The Chamber’s Workforce Development Department—through a partnership with WorkSource—provides leadership, information and support to meet the current and future workforce needs of Northeast Florida businesses. We focus on the areas of employer access, leadership, engagement, self employment and talent generation.

Employer Access
With a membership base of roughly 3,500, the JAX Chamber is uniquely positioned to engage with employers to identify job leads and turnover rates, provide advance indicators of signs of recovery in targeted industries, develop additional opportunities for employer/job seeker interaction, and facilitate the building of key relationships between WorkSource and area employers. If you are seeking qualified employees, or looking for a job, please visit www.EmployFlorida.com   

Employer leadership & Engagement

While we recognize workforce development as the backbone of economic development, often the large institutions and systems in place to develop a strong workforce are slow to accommodate the changing needs of the employment marketplace. In addition, even businesses’ human resources operations can be slow to adapt to innovation and change in hiring practices and on the job training benefits. By leveraging the voice of local industry, the Chamber is able to communicate messages to drive change and foster innovation in both the education and business sectors.

Job Identification & Creation

It is critical for companies that are hiring to be connected to viable job seekers. With access to the business community, the Chamber partners with WorkSource in its community outreach efforts including education and placement of workers. 

Self-Employment

Self-employment is a viable option for the unemployed, underemployed, dislocated worker or currently employed worker. With training, participants can assess if self-employment is right for them, learn if they have a viable business model, and acquire the critical skills necessary to start and grow a business.  With this instruction the participant improves their rate of success and minimizes the risk of personal and business failure. For more information and resources on starting your business, please visit the Small Business Center portion of this website.

Talent Generation

We work to develop communication and intelligence pipelines in determining future workforce availability by measurement of current enrollees in targeted industries. We partner with colleges and universities to assist in recruitment of key strategic industries for regional economic growth. Recently we have joined the nationwide effort to equip our developing workforce with stronger skills in the areas of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) to meet demand. For Florida to continue to be a competitive economy, we must work with our local educational partners to cultivate these skills in our next generation of workers.