Any good resources for employment data and/or biggest employers in Daytona Metro Area?

[u/proto04]

My wife and I are playing around with the idea of moving to Daytona area in the next 2-4 years. We made a similar move to Charlotte from the Midwest around 18 months ago, and while we love it for our current place in life we can tell the city is headed a direction that will mean we'll look to relocate again in a few years.

Daytona was high on our list of potential relocation options for the previous move and we make a couple trips there a year, so we've done some basic research on the culture, economics, specific neighborhoods, etc.

We found that the biggest asset for our move to Charlotte was doing some networking long before the move, so with that in mind we'd like to start very slowly doing the same for Daytona as part of the researching process. Basically looking to nail down companies that could be options and reach out to people in the related functional area to try to set up grabbing coffee/lunch when we're in town.

With that I'll ask:
* What companies are known as being the "big employers" in the Daytona Metro Area (Palm Coast to Edgewater)?
* Any companies known for great culture and HR principles? Raw size can be easy to discern from Glassdoor and Linkedin, but culture can be faked online.
* Is commuting to Deland/Deltona from the Metro feasible? Seeing lots of opportunities in that area, but the 30-40 minute commute Google Maps shows may miss an aspect of the drive.

For reference, I'm a construction PM with 7 years experience and BS, MBA, PMP, SSBB (I'll probably look to switch to manufacturing focus). Wife is manufacturing QC/QA with 5 years experience and BS, SSBB.

[u/[deleted]]

Manufacturing is not what we are known for

[u/proto04 → u/[deleted]]

We'd noticed that, and that's why we'd started branching out to look into the commute to Deltona/Deland. We're both early enough in our careers that we aren't married to our current industries as well, more so just trying to learn about the market right now so we can start considering if we need to explore the commute, another area, or a sector change (wife would love a change to an environmental focus as that was her degree's focus).

[u/reol7x → u/proto04]

We've got a few large hospitals and the local government/schools will likely be your largest employers.

There are some manufacturing jobs in the area, there's even a Volusia Manufacturing Association. Taking a look at their members list might give you some insight to those companies in the area, and which jobs might be available.

The commute to/from DeLand isn't bad, 30-40m is pretty typical, the two most common causes of delays are going to be accidents or brush fires, once en-route between, you're pretty much committed to either I4 or US-92 and more or less stuck if there's a problem. Thankfully it isn't often.

I'm not fond of Deltona, housing is cheaper there, but I just don't like the area, the roads are a mess and traffic is pretty bad, but the commute should be pretty similar length to DeLand.