Employment

Better Together to host Fort Myers Nationwide Day of Second Chances job fair on Thursday for job seekers with barriers to employment

Following the devastation of Hurricane Ian, we know that many have lost so much, including their place of employment. With that in mind, there are many businesses who are currently hiring and need employees in varying fields and positions.

Did you ever wonder how “they” come up with a complicated estimate of something, like the tons of debris create by Hurricane Ian, which hit Lee County as a Category 4 tropical cyclone Sept. 28?A Lake Mary-based company helping to compile that figure is in a hiring blitz, turning Hurricane Ian into an opportunity to earn as much as $1,300 a week.Call the position a Post-Cyclonic Rubbish Removal Quality Control Specialist, but the reality is less fancy: stand around and watch trash collectors collects trash. And write it down.Thompson Consulting Services needs people to document how much hurricane-related debris is collected by companies Lee County has hired to haul away all the tree limbs, coconuts, garbage, and other debris. The job is not collecting the trash, but counting the amount that others do.

The unemployment rate of 2.7% is unchanged from July, and an estimated 293,000 Floridians were out of work last month.

Is "quiet quitting" about being lazy or setting healthy boundaries? Is it even real? We dig into the data and ask workers themselves about what it means to them.

Florida Gulf Coast University and its partner, the FutureMakers Coalition at the Collaboratory in downtown Fort Myers, has been awarded a $22.9 million dollar grant. The grant will help fund an effort to fundamentally change how people are trained and jobs are filled in Southwest Florida and beyond.