While the unemployment rate on Florida’s Space Coast has fluctuated since the retirement of the space shuttle last year, there are signs of an economic rebirth in Brevard County, FloridaToday reports.
New businesses are moving into the area around NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, some started by former shuttle workers and others by entrepreneurs with no connection to the space program. In the first five months of 2012, nearly 8,200 jobs were created in Brevard, the report says.
“Another year and we’ll be pulling out of this thing almost in its entirety,” said Frank DiBello of Space Florida, the agency through which the state works to retain and grow its aerospace industry. “There clearly is a sense of momentum out there in the market, and we are winning a bunch of new companies to the area.”
