This Week’s Treasure Coast Business News 6/27
|
AVOID GENDER PREFERENCE IN JOB POSTINGS
BY DAVID MIKLAS
A South Florida company had a sales team consisting of 22 men and five women. The owner of the company was inspired by the #MeToo movement and wanted to make sure he was doing his part to “level the playing field.” He decided to run an ad specifically intended to hire more women into the sales department. The company ran a job listing on the website, stating it was “taking the radical approach of actively soliciting women salespeople.” The title above the listing announced that the company “Wants to Hire Women Sales Associates!”
Although the ad specifically targeted women applicants, a male applicant applied but was rejected via an email that read, “At this time we won’t be moving forward with your application.”
The male applicant filed a charge of discrimination with the Florida Commission on Human Relations. The FCHR investigated the allegations and in June 2018 ruled partially in favor of the applicant, determining that the company fully considered his application regardless of his gender before it rejected him. However, the FCHR also concluded the company’s stated gender preference was “direct evidence of gender discrimination” under Florida law. The FCHR stated in its ruling that “reasonable cause exists to believe that an unlawful practice occurred” in the company’s explicitly soliciting female applicants.
In fact, the FCHR’s executive director wrote in her determination of reasonable cause that the company “provided the posting and acknowledged that ... it stated a gender preference because [the company] wanted to get more female employees …This is direct evidence of gender discrimination under section 760.10(6), Florida Statutes.”
The company’s main defense was that the male applicant was unqualified for the position because he had no prior sales experience and did not even live in Florida.
The applicant was seeking back pay and front pay from the date the position was filled by another individual, along with attorney fees.
This recent South Florida case reminds all Florida employers that there is a significant danger in running advertisements, including online postings, excluding a certain segment of the population.
Treasure Coast Business is a news service and magazine published in print, via e-newsletter and online at tcbusiness.com by Indian River Magazine Inc. For more information or to report news email staff@tcbusiness.com
David Miklas
Employment lawyer based in Fort Pierce. His firm, Law Office of David Miklas, exclusively represents employers, both in the private and public sectors.
Water’s Edge dermatology has added Chris Cromwell, M.D. to its plastic surgery team
Dr. Chris Cromwell, MD
Cromwell earned a medical degree from Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and completed a general surgery residency at State University of New York at Buffalo. He did his plastic surgery residency at Nassau University Medical Center in Long Island, New York with Long Island Plastic Surgery Group and a cosmetic and breast reconstructive fellowship at Northern Westchester Hospital Center in Mount Kisco, New York.
Dr. Cromwell performs a variety of plastic surgery procedures, including:
· Injectable fillers / BOTOX®
· Facial procedures
· Body procedures
· Reconstructive procedures
· Soft tissue reconstruction / trauma and reconstruction
Whether you want to erase the signs of aging, reshape your body after pregnancy or weight loss, improve the appearance of scars or receive breast reconstruction following a cancer diagnosis, Dr. Cromwell can help by creating natural looking results for your face and body.
To make an appointment with Dr. Cromwell
CALL (877) 544-3880
Water’s Edge Dermatology plastic surgery location:
St. Lucie West
Treasure Coast Business is a news service and magazine published in print, via e-newsletter and online at tcbusiness.com by Indian River Magazine Inc. For more information or to report news email staff@tcbusiness.com
INSTITUTIONS GENERATE JOBS TO SPREAD WEALTH THROUGHOUT COMMUNITY
Research facilities on the Treasure Coast are quietly boosting the local economy by millions of dollars while putting the area on the map with each significant discovery published by research scientists. And the better known the Treasure Coast is, the more likely it is to attract new companies and institutions.
BALANCED MARKET GOOD FOR BUYERS AND SELLERS
The real estate market on the Treasure Coast for the first quarter showed fewer sales but higher prices, and Realtors say the market is becoming more balanced. CITY OF PORT ST. LUCIE
Consumer confidence and low mortgage rates point to continued strength
BY BERNIE WOODALL
Home sales on the Treasure Coast fell in the first quarter of 2019, but rising prices and expectations that the economy will remain strong point to a robust real estate market for the rest of the year, local and state industry leaders report.
Florida Realtors showed that single-family home sales in the metro area, including Martin and St. Lucie counties, fell 6.8 percent, while median prices rose 3.3 percent. For the same period and area, condo and townhouse sales fell 11 percent and median prices for those sales rose 8.6 percent.
For Indian River County, single-family home sales fell 6 percent and median prices rose 4 percent. Condo and townhouse sales rose 7.5 percent and values rose 21.7 percent, according to Florida Realtors.
Median price is the point at which half of sales are lower and half are higher.
Jarrod Lowe, a Realtor in Jensen Beach and the president-elect of the Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches, covering Martin and St. Lucie counties as well as the much-larger Broward and Palm Beach counties, says the first-quarter decline in sales is nothing to worry about. The market has already strengthened in April and May, he said, in part because of continuing low mortgage rates and consumer confidence that the economy will stay strong.
The recovery from the recession a decade ago was slow. It took about five years for the market to return to good health, Realtors told Treasure Coast Business. If a significant economic slowdown strikes, the real estate and housing markets are likely to be quicker to recover, as the last recession was largely caused by a housing price bubble and loan crisis, which is not expected to recur.
“We have more of a competitive, balanced market, where before we were definitively in a buyers’ market for a long period of time,” Lowe says. “We are close to 10 years of sustained growth in the real estate market. We’re balancing and evening out, and it’s a healthy market which is fair for both buyers and sellers.”
REAL HEALTHY
Andrew Harper, president of the Realtor Association of Indian River County, says the average price for home sales rose 8.3 percent, well more than the median because of the outsized value of homes on the barrier islands. Beach area homes in the quarter averaged sale prices of $1.05 million. They made up 40 percent of the county’s transactional dollar volume in the first quarter while making up only 13 percent of all county sales.
In Okeechobee County, volume of sales is much less than its Treasure Coast neighbors, but it may be the hottest market among the four right now.
Cristie Schmidt, president of the Okeechobee County Board of Realtors, says, “We’ve got a real healthy market right now.” She says homes that were reaching contract in a month now often take only one or two weeks.
Buyers still come to the Treasure Coast from up north, but many are now relocating from Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, Realtors say, particularly to Port St. Lucie.
Realty group figures show that Martin’s market narrowly favors buyers, while Indian River and St. Lucie are still sellers’ markets, but much less so than a year ago.
A factor that may have contributed to the Treasure Coast’s drop in first quarter 2019 sales volume is that early 2018 sales may have been boosted by sales postponed from late 2017 when the area was recovering from the effects of Hurricane Irma. Also, mortgage rates rose above 4 percent in the first quarter and have since fallen below that point, according to area Realtors.
Statewide, Orlando-based Florida Realtors showed a 1.2 percent drop in home sales in the first quarter as median sale prices rose 2 percent.
Treasure Coast Business is a news service and magazine published in print, via e-newsletter and online at tcbusiness.com by Indian River Magazine Inc. For more information or to report news email staff@tcbusiness.com
IS YOUR BUSINESS READY FOR GOVERNMENT CONTRACTING?
Winning a government contract can be very rewarding, but getting there is an extremely complex process, especially if you’re not prepared beforehand.
Scotty Wilson, a consultant with Procurement Technical Assistance Center
Scotty Wilson, a consultant with Procurement Technical Assistance Center, helps businesses examine their readiness for a government contract. Strategy, performance, operations and capital are among the key areas.
Scotty Wilson, a Procurement Technical Assistance Center consultant who specializes in government contracting, helps businesses assess whether they are ready for government contracting by looking at five key areas of a business.
PERSISTENCE, PATIENCE KEY IN CLOSING DEALS
In early 2016 an old friend and fishing buddy, Scott Deal, founder of Maverick Boat Company, invited me to a quiet lunch with a singular purpose in mind — my assistance in finding a building large enough and geographically close enough to expand his very crowded 77,764-square-foot marine manufacturing facility into a new satellite operation. Deal was mindful that the improving economy was leading to boat orders that his company-supplied dealers were clamoring to fulfill, placing additional delivery pressure on an already stressed manufacturing line.