Wealthy Americans looking for a new way of life in the Sunshine State are going to have to set aside some big bucks if they want to secure staff to keep their households running smoothly.
Housekeepers in rich pockets of Florida such as Palm Beach are now commanding salaries of up to $150,000 a year, recruiting agencies told CNBC, as the immigration of millionaires from cities like New York to warmer climes continues.
The increased demand has led to bidding wars for sought-after staffers who can help families new to the area settle in—ranging from nannies to chefs to senior positions like housekeepers and estate managers.
While sites like Indeed show the average hourly wage for housekeepers in Florida is around $26—rising to approximately $30 after 10 years of experience—agencies told CNBC skilled labor for high-end hospitality roles can now claim between $45 and $50 an hour for their work.
In a state like Florida, which welcomed 130 million visitors in 2023, this presents a problem for hotels and resorts, which are seeing their costs balloon ahead of a busy summer season.
“I have been placing staff for 30 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” April Berube, founder of staffing experts the Wellington Agency told CNBC. “For housekeepers, it’s wonderful. For us it’s extremely difficult. It’s a severe shortage.”
Berube added that the specialized nature of working for the wealthy—including discreetly navigating a home, meticulously cleaning antiques and fine art, and properly laundering expensive clothes—has further exacerbated the shortage of elite staff.
The mass departure from major U.S. cities to Florida—and the southern part of the state in particular—has garnered increasing attention over the past 12 months after figures like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos relocated to the area.
But while Bezos may be buying up mansions in the so-called Billionaire Bunker of Miami, inflows into the state more widely are on the rise. According to Census Bureau data for 2022, more than 91,000 New Yorkers left the Empire State to relocate to Florida.
Even the American state with the lowest out-migration figure—Texas—lost more than 32,000 people to its East Coast counterpart.
Why are so many people moving to Florida?
The reasons are fairly simple: In addition to balmy weather and a seaside lifestyle, Florida also provides a massive boon to the wealthy: no individual income tax.
But while Florida may not tax the income of its inhabitants, this has meant a loss for the states that previously could count on that income.
Research by the Economic Innovation Group (EIG) found that during the pandemic, $16.5 billion in taxable income flowed out of Manhattan, and $4.6 billion of it was bound for Florida.
Florida was the biggest beneficiary of inflows between 2020 and 2021, raking in an additional $39 billion from inhabitants moving from other states.
And, according to experts, a burgeoning Florida population isn’t about to shrink again anytime soon. As Kenan Fikri, director of research at EIG, explained to Fortune: “The idea of being [in] a place where you [don’t] just get those first formative years in the labor market and then leave, but a place where you can build an entire career and afford to stay as long as you want would be very attractive.
“A lot of people who have left high-cost city centers over the past couple of years would have preferred to be able to stay but felt that they couldn’t, so they felt they had to move.”
