It's official: we suck not only at creating jobs, we suck at keeping them

Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater lost more jobs from January 2007 to January 2008 than anywhere else in the state of Florida, according to stats released today by the state's Agency for Workforce Innovation.

11, 700 jobs went bye-bye from greater Tampa Bay over the 12-month period.

(Waiting a few seconds for that to sink in.)

Hot on our tails were Bradenton-Sarasota (-11,100 jobs) and the Fort Myers area (-10,800 jobs). Not a good year for the gulf coast.

Download the numbers here (.pdf file)

The Tampa Chamber, for its part, counters with news of the creation of 410 aircraft maintenance jobs at Tampa International Airport.