After more than a decade of single-digit unemployment rates and businesses desperately trying to fill positions, job creation is a hot topic again.

Is it any wonder? Florida's jobless rate recently hit 11 percent -- among the most painful in the nation thanks, in great part, to our reliance on the real-estate sector.

And as we wallow in our economic woes, discussions about job creation increasingly center around education. In meetings, at parties, education is mentioned over and over again as the solution to our lack of jobs.

Frank Nero, Miami-Dade's economic development chief, is particularly concerned about the role education plays in our ability to recruit companies.

``Clearly, I think one of our key issues in continued recruitment is education,'' he was quoted in The Miami Herald last spring. ``We cannot continue to recruit knowledge-based industries without understanding that we need to provide the knowledge -- and therefore funding -- for our education system.''

Education, no doubt, can play a major role in our ability to create jobs. And investing in education has many virtues beyond job creation. But education alone can't fix what will most likely require a cocktail of solutions.

FERTILE GROUND FOR JOBS

Although it's difficult to believe at the moment, the United States is a model for the rest of the world when it comes to job creation. For much of the 1980s and '90s, Yankee and Australian businesses surpassed most other countries when it came to creating jobs.

A study of 21 countries published by the International Monetary Fund found that non-European countries such as Australia, the United States, Canada and New Zealand outpaced the job development of most European countries. What made the difference? More often than not, a flexible labor market and a diversified economy.

Yet other studies have attributed job-creation success to entrepreneurialism. This hasn't been lost on Gov. Charlie Crist. To his credit, Crist has acknowledged the important role that fostering home-grown businesses can play in getting us out of the unemployment line and back in the workplace. In an attempt to focus on the small businesses that make up most of our economy, he's promoting a $10 million program that offers loans of as much as $250,000 to small Florida businesses in high-growth industries.

A LESSON IN FREE THINKING

It's a notable effort, but it pales in comparison to what Texas is doing. In grandiose, cowboy fashion, Texas recently announced that it would invest $3 billion over the next 10 years on research to prevent and cure cancer. There's more than nobility behind the intent -- the program also will likely create jobs as Texas puts out a call to scientists and researchers everywhere to come to the state and set up shop.

In some ways, such an approach isn't very different from traditional efforts to buy jobs by offering tax incentives to firms that move or set up shot here. What's more, it has the added benefit of targeting industries that not only will experience rapid future growth, but also that allow the state to diversify its economy. If nothing else, you at least have to give Texas credit for originality.

That's exactly the kind of originality Florida will need if it's to get itself out of this job quagmire sooner rather than later.

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