More jobs promised in Miami-Dade

During his 2012 re-election campaign, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez promised to "attract new investment and create high-paying, quality jobs."

But Gimenez was careful about that promise: he didn't attach a dollar figure or number of jobs to his promise. Gimenez's spokeswoman told us that the mayor specifically wanted to attract jobs in information technology, engineering and life sciences.

Gimenez's promise overlaps with the Beacon Council's "One Community One Goal" initiative to create 75,000 new jobs by 2017 with a focus on targeted industries, including IT and life sciences. When we wrote about this promise in June, the Beacon Council sent us a list of seven companies that reached deals that included 553 jobs in Miami-Dade County over three years -- which led us to give Gimenez an "In the Works" for his progress in June 2013.

We wanted to check in on his progress four months later.

The Beacon Council sent us a new list of additional IT, engineering and life science companies that reached agreements by Oct. 1 to provide jobs in Miami-Dade County over the next three years:

• Cable and Wireless Communications, from the UK, global telecom firm: 263 new jobs

• DBK Concepts, from Miami-Dade, service provider for data collection technology: 70 new jobs

• International Software Company (ISC, Inc.), from France, IT company: 5 new jobs

• Skyscanner, from Scotland, IT travel/flight search engine: 50 new jobs

• Vioearth, from the UK, energy efficient products designer: 45 jobs

The new batch of jobs add up to 433.

It's hard to pinpoint how much credit Gimenez should get for these new jobs. No matter who the county mayor is, some companies could choose to relocate or expand in Miami-Dade County. (Also, the data we received from the Beacon Council reflected jobs coming in -- not whether any jobs in these areas were cut.)

We sent a summary of what we learned from the Beacon Council to Chris Lafakis, a senior economist at Moody's who studies Miami-Dade's economy, and asked him to assess Gimenez's promise.

"The needle has barely moved ... a couple hundred jobs here or there is not going to have a measurable impact on the Miami economy, which employs over one million."

Lafakis sent us data that showed the number of jobs per month in Miami-Dade County in technical consulting, IT, engineering and other similar jobs have remained fairly stagnant over the past year.

Because the evidence seems mixed so far, we leave the rating as is: In the Works.