With the city's overall low unemployment rate, theme parks and hotels thirsty for more workers have had to travel out of state to find employees. Maybe they should have taken a closer look at their own back yard. The Orlando Business Journal notes Central Florida's "dramatic pockets of continued joblessness," such as the Parramore district, where the jobless rate for men 18 to 25 reaches 15 percent. The Central Florida Hotel & Motel Association plans a job fair in that neighborhood, but tourist-district businesses and potential workers find themselves in a bind: Hardly any bus routes connect the two areas.
"It's a serious problem," Phil Wright, general manager of the Best Western Lake Buena Vista, told the Business Journal. "It's just not feasible for them to take jobs because there is no way to get here." Two bus routes, each running just once in the morning and once in the afternoon, connect downtown to Disney. No buses run between downtown and the Lake Buena Vista hotel strip.
Lynx's response? Good idea, but can't afford it. Orange County told Lynx to cut its budget by 3 percent next year.
So, carless people who want jobs are stuck with a frustrating reality: Can't get there from here.
