The moving company, U-Haul, released its 2021 Growth Index of cities and markets Florida has 10 cities in the report’s top 25.
U-Haul explained how it determined the rankings in the report.
“Growth cities are calculated by the net gain of one-way U-Haul trucks entering a city/market versus leaving that city/market in a calendar year,” U-Haul said. “Migration trends data is compiled from well over 2 million one-way U-Haul truck customer transactions that occur annually. Neighboring cities in U-Haul markets are often packaged together for migration trends purposes.”
The Florida cities included with their rankings are:
- Kissimmee-St. Cloud (1),
- Palm Bay-Melbourne (3),
- North Port (4),
- Fort Myers-North Fort Myers (6),
- Clermont (9),
- Sarasota-Bradenton (10),
- Daytona Beach (11),
- Port St. Lucie (13),
- Brandon-Riverview (19), and
- Ocala (24).
Officials within U-Haul touted the attractiveness of Florida as a place many Americans desire to move to.
“Florida remains competitive, especially during the COVID era,” said Miguel Caminos, U-Haul Company of Orlando president. “We’ve pushed through and business is thriving. It’s not just people moving to Florida, but businesses moving because they see better opportunities here.”
Mario Martinez, U-Haul Area District Vice President of Southern Florida, echoed comments from Caminos when discussing why people are moving to Florida.
“There are many other reasons why people are coming to Florida, and have come in previous years,” Martinez said. “We have lower cost (of living) than other states. There is no state income tax – that’s a huge factor. The warm weather. Basically, we have summer weather all year long. Attractions. Our beaches. The activities. There’s just so much to do. Jobs that are available play a very important part in people moving into Florida. And during this pandemic for the past two years, we’ve also pretty much been open the entire time. This state has kept on going, and (2021) has just been busy all the way around.”
One of the newest statewide reports also showed why Florida has become a big draw for employers and employees, alike. Last month, the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity released its monthly jobs report for November 2021 and it found Florida’s unemployment rate dropped to 4.5 percent. It also showed that Florida created 51,100 jobs out of the nation’s total of 200,000 jobs.
Florida Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Mark Wilson discussed Florida’s upward trajectory at the chamber’s 2022 Economic Outlook & Jobs Solution Summit.
“If Florida was a stock and we can keep the business community united, I would be investing as much as I could,” Wilson said, then saying: “The kinds of problems we have in Florida are the kinds of problems that most countries and states wish that they had.”
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Grant Holcomb is a reporter at the Florida Capital Star and the Star News Network. Follow Grant on Twitter and direct message tips.
