Sun-soaked Southwest Florida is largely considered an enclave of wealth. Until the downturn in the housing market, its turbo-charged economy was seemingly stifled only by worker shortages and other symptoms of its growing pains.

But the last year of suffering in the real estate market has slowly percolated to nearly every industry in the region.

Welfare caseloads are creeping up. Pawnbrokers have been so inundated with used construction equipment sold to pay the bills that many have stopped buying. "Help Wanted" signs, once commonplace, are disappearing from store windows.

And for the first time since most anyone can remember, Sarasota, Manatee and Charlotte counties -- bastions of the 2-plus-percent unemployment rate -- are seeing a measure of joblessness rivaling the state average.

The July rate in Charlotte County was 5.5 percent -- the worst since Hurricane Charley -- while Sarasota County's rose to 4.4 percent and Manatee to 4.2 percent.

The increases range from 45 percent to 62 percent compared with the same time last year.

Statewide unemployment was 3.9 percent in July, up 18.8 percent from the same time in 2006; the national rate, 4.6 percent.

"There's a lot of unemployment out there right now, and the jobs that are out there don't pay enough," says Karim Daniel, who owns the $9.99 Shoe Warehouse in Sarasota. "Families have less money for shoes. But they also have less money for food and rent."

Daniel's customers are mostly families with little income, so this father of two teenagers has had a ground-floor view of the uptick in joblessness.

He has also witnessed the impact to his bottom line. Sales have dropped about 30 percent in the last year. His store, once crammed with inventory and people, is half-bare.

"We are trying to keep up until things change, but I don't know," Daniel said. "A lot of business are not going to be able to make it, if the economy keeps going the way it is."

Though the biggest impacts have come from the distressed housing market, there have also been hits to the region's manufacturing community, which once defied its national counterpart's job-shedding woes.

Retail lost 400 jobs in the Sarasota-Bradenton-Venice metropolitan area from July 2006 to last month. Construction and manufacturing both shed 300 positions. Transportation, warehousing and utilities cut 200 jobs, while leisure and hospitality and federal government sectors both trimmed 100.

Fortunately, the job losses come at a time when the national economy remains relatively healthy, said John Challenger, of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the nationally recognized outplacement consulting firm.

But Florida and California are not likely to enjoy the same level of health. They are two states likely to continue to bear the brunt of the real estate downturn for some time, Challenger said.

In Florida, some experts think the recession is already under way.

"There's been thousands of layoffs," said Jack McCabe, chief executive of Deerfield Beach-based McCabe Research & Consulting, a real estate market analysis and consulting company. "Our economy is already feeling the effects. It's in crisis stages. We're seeing many of the jobs that we created in the last five years disappear. It's going to bleed out into every sector."

'That's a record for us'

The people who help the unemployed retrain or counsel them on their options have already seen a significant spike in visitors.

"In July, over 4,000 people visited our Bradenton office alone. That's on the order of 200 per day. That's a record for us," said Sally Hill, spokeswoman for the Suncoast Workforce Board. "The traffic is up in Sarasota as well."

All told, the board's Jobs Etc. One-Stop Career Centers served 8,752 job seekers during July through its offices in Bradenton, Sarasota and Venice. Total visits for the year are up a third from 2006.

Tina Stebner is a 37-year-old college-educated former British Petroleum account executive who came to Sarasota from Chicago three years ago. She bought a home two years ago -- at the height of the real estate boom and in the middle of the insurance premium and property tax crisis.

When she lost her job at BP, she began temping. But even those sporadic jobs "ran out" in the past year.

For the last year, she has essentially been unemployed. In July, after looking for work unsuccessfully for months, she landed a sales job in Venice. But two weeks ago, she was let go because of "economic uncertainty."

"I was brought up to believe that you go to school, get a college degree and that you buy a house, it's the smartest investment you will ever make," Stebner said.

The Community Coalition on Homelessness operates a light services crisis center called the Open Door in Bradenton.

Its 63-year-old coordinator, Martha Childress, said she is offering hot coffee, showers and referrals to increasing numbers of Southwest Florida residents.

Last year, she served two or three homeless children per month. This year, she is serving 20. Last year, she had about 500 service visits per month. This year, it is consistently around 1,000.

Last year, she averaged 16 new clients -- first encounters with the recently homeless or those who had just made contact with area social service agencies -- per month. This year, she is averaging 100.

"I had two women come in who were homeless and riding around in a borrowed van. Between the two of them, they had 11 children," Childress said. "And these were little children, not-old-enough-to-help-Momma kind of children, but children that need to be watched and wherever Momma goes, they go."

Meanwhile, the back rooms of area pawnshops are filling up with saws, drills and other tools and equipment pawned by displaced workers in the construction trades.

"We're being swamped, to the point that we've pretty much stopped taking it," said James Sewell, co-owner of Goldcoast Pawn & Jewelry on Clark Road in Sarasota. "It's gotten really bad in the last four to five months."

Sewell said many of the former construction workers tell him they are leaving the Sunshine State.

"They're going to that Tennessee, North Carolina and Kentucky corridor -- they are calling it the 'New Florida,'" he said.

The unemployment situation combined with rising taxes and property insurance premiums has made Southwest Florida unlivable for many, Sewell said.

"It's gotten to be like California, but without the wages."

STAFF PHOTO / DAN WAGNER

James Sewell, co-owner of Goldcoast Pawn & Jewelry in Sarasota, said he is swamped with used construction equipment, and many of the former construction workers tell him they are leaving Florida. "It's gotten really bad in the last four to five months," he said.

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Swanny Note : The Economy is crashing  in Florida and throughout the Country . The talk in the media is only regarding the Sub Prime Lenders and Loans but the problems run deeper into faked appraisals and sales between developer associates.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20070824/BUSINESS/708240754