If an upside can be identified from the damaging deepwater oil spill on the economy of the Pensacola Beach region of North Florida, it is that it has provided employment opportunities for thousands of previously unemployed people.

This has given new meaning to the cliché, “One man’s pain is another man’s gain.” On one hand, the disaster has been a severe financial setback to some Panhandle residents and business people, but the calamity is also providing unexpected jobs for others.

BP, the oil company responsible for the Deepwater Horizon oil accident and related oil spill, has indicated that it plans to employ close to 7,000 people in Florida, Mississippi and Alabama to look for and collect tar balls off miles of white-sand beaches.

A BP officer in Pensacola has been reported as saying that already some 1,500 unemployed individuals have been hired in Escambia County, where Pensacola Beach is located; and in Okaloosa County, where Destin and Fort Walton Beach are located.

If the oil spill worsens, with more tar balls and blobs affecting the beaches, more people could be employed. It is virtually impossible for the clean-up work to be carried out by machines as the oil blobs would most likely clog them.

Randy Lennox, a resident of Pensacola Beach, said that as much as he hates to admit it, he envisaged that if the oil spill affected the beaches of the region it would open jobs for the large number of unemployed people in the area. “I am lucky to have landed a job which is paying $18 dollars an hour. The work is satisfactory both from a monetary aspect and the significance of what I am doing in helping to preserve some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.”

Most of the jobs are available by applying to Workforce agencies in Pensacola. Reports are that there has been a rash of demand for oil-clean-up jobs related to the oil spill.

Lennox admitted that the job is not easy. “We have to work in the hot sun on a long 12 hour shift, and the glare from the white-sand is not easy on the eyes, plus we have to place the gooey stuff we collect from the beach in bags that weigh as much as 20 lbs each. Some people also work the night shift, as BP has made provision, including proper lighting to facilitate night work. But, nobody is really complaining about the hard work. We are allowed to take rest breaks, and hey, the pay is good.” Lennox added that not everyone who applies can get a beach cleaning job. “You have to meet certain criteria, such as being physically fit to get the jobs, but from what I can see few people are being turned away.”