St. Johns County, Chamber to host inaugural Health Care Career Expo April 8 to meet hiring needs

St. Johns County and the St. Johns County Chamber of Commerce will host the inaugural St. Johns County Health Care Career Expo on April 8 from 3 to 7 p.m. at First Coast Technical College, county and chamber representatives said on a local radio program.

"We are quietly becoming a health care hub in Florida," said Scott Maynard of the Chamber of Commerce, listing recent and planned local projects that he said are driving demand for workers: a new HCA freestanding emergency room, a UF Health hospital under construction, a new Baptist facility in Silverleaf, AdventHealth expansions, a 104-bed Acadia Behavioral Health facility and an Ascension Saint Vincent's birthing center application. Maynard estimated the county will need about 3,500 new hires tied to seven new health-care facilities.

Aliyah Meyer of the county's economic development department framed the expo as part of the county's strategic plan to grow a sustainable talent pipeline and connect employers with students and residents. "We invited the health care employers that are coming into the area as well as existing employers...to showcase the job opportunities that they're seeing coming into their new hospitals," she said.

Organizers said the expo is free to attend but requires registration; the transcript lists a county web path as sjcfl.us/2026-healthcare-expo for registration and notes businesses may register as vendors. The event will host employers, local colleges (First Coast Technical College, St. Johns River State), workforce agencies such as CareerSource, and local school career academies to showcase career pathways, hands-on demos and on-site recruiting.

Speakers emphasized that many in-demand roles are "back-of-house" positions — accounting, billing, IT, respiratory therapists, surgical techs, physical therapists and other allied-health occupations — and noted that First Coast Technical College plans to start a new surgical-tech program to help meet workforce needs.

What happens next: organizers continue outreach for participating employers and vendors; interested students and job seekers are asked to register through the county's event page. Maynard and Meyer encouraged attendees and schools to use the expo to build recruitment pipelines and internships that could help retain talent locally.