Sunshine state lags nation in productivity

Metropolitan regions across Florida scored poorly on a new report that analyzes employee productivity and employee growth during a three year-period, 2009-2011, when the economy was supposedly in recovery.

The April report, from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, probed the growth, or lack thereof, in output per employee and the labor force increase in each metropolitan statistical area. The report is based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Fed.

Two of the bottom five regions, out of the 100 largest MSAs in the country, were in Florida: Lakeland-Winter Haven was last, with a -2.1% drop in combined productivity and total employment increase. The North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton region, meanwhile, fell -0.4% from 2009 to 2011, according to the report, for the fifth-worst rank in the country. Significantly, the Sarasota-Bradenton region had 1.7% in employment increase in that time frame, so the drop was based on a -2.1% decrease in employee productivity.