By Samantha Bookman

AT&T (NYSE: T) is opening two new retail locations in Miami and hiring 235 employees for locations between Key West and Vero Beach, the carrier announced Monday.

More than half of the openings are newly created jobs. Around 40 of those new positions were created specifically to staff the new Miami locations.

The carrier has been on a hiring spree in Florida since April, when it announced it would hire 650 employees, primarily in its call center and network organizations. Nearly 350 are newly created positions.

Florida is also a growth area for AT&T’s RBOC brother. Verizon (NYSE: VZ) has been bulking up its FiOS staff in the state, primarily in the Tampa area, where it announced in late June that it would add 100 customer representatives.

Marshall Criser, III, AT&T Florida’s president, credited the state’s majority-Republican legislature and governor for creating a “climate for investment” in the company’s announcement. “The investment we’re making in our wireless and wired networks is essential to spurring Florida’s economy and creating jobs,” he said. “In our wireless world, mobile and broadband networks create economic opportunities for health care, manufacturing, education, transportation and public safety, and virtually every other economic section.”

That corporate-friendly environment hasn’t seemed to extend to everyone. AT&T and Verizon’s upward growth in Florida sits in stark contrast to cable MSO Cablevision (NYSE: CVC), which reportedly is laying off employees at its OMGFAST subsidiary in South Florida. The wireless broadband provider delivers 50 Mbps Internet access to customers via a MVDDS (multichannel video and data distribution service) using microwave transmitters installed on rooftops and towers.

Positions will be posted on AT&T’s job site “as they become available.”
Read More AT&T hiring 200-plus employees in South Florida – FierceTelecom.

***Get in on this if you live in the area and need a job!!!! ~SB***