Jobs in Tampa Created by USAA

[Cheezhead]

One company is planning to create at least 200 jobs in Tampa.

The United Services Automobile Association, a financial services company based in San Antonio, recently announced its plan to add a banking and investment operation division to the company's insurance center in Tampa. The USAA is a membership organization that provides auto insurance, investment and other financial services to military families.

The company's plan would create 200 jobs, and though many of those positions are expected to be filled by current USAA employees, at least 80 of the new jobs will be filled from outside the company. According to an article by WTVT, the USAA currently employs more than 1,700 workers at its Tampa office.

Tampa's struggling financial services industry and economy as a whole could benefit from the added jobs. During September, the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area's financial activities industry employed 94,100 workers, according to the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is down from 96,000 workers during August and a 3.9 percent decrease from last year.

The Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation recently announced that during September, the Tampa area's unemployment rate increased from 11.4 percent to 11.7 percent. That rate is higher than the national unemployment rate of 9.8 percent and higher than the area's unemployment rate of 7.2 during September 2008.

The BLS found that the area had a total non-farm employment of 1,161,700 workers during September, which is down from 1,162,200 workers during August and a 4.5 percent decrease from last year.

The nation as a whole lost 263,000 jobs during September, with the largest job losses taking place in the construction, manufacturing, retail trade and government industries. The number of unemployed people has increased by 7.6 million to 15.1 million since the recession began in December 2007, while the unemployment rate has doubled to 9.8 percent.