In a low-hire, low-fire labor market with little movement and a higher-than-usual unemployment rate for recent college grads, entry-level opportunities in New York City are declining, and the city’s unemployment rate, at 5.4% in May, is far above the national level. And that’s in a market where average rents clock in around $3,700…
There’s a growing pile of economic research and rankings to back that sentiment. While San Francisco leads the pack in LinkedIn’s ranking for entry-level opportunities by city, Orlando, Atlanta, Charleston, Tampa, Austin, and Nashville all make the cut of top 10 markets. ADP’s list of top metropolitan areas for college grads — which takes hiring rates, wages, and affordability into account — also leans southern, putting Birmingham and Tampa above San Jose. New York City, which ranks at the bottom in ADP’s top 10, ranks below Charlotte.
The states that have seen the largest percentage gain in year-over-year job growth by the federal government’s tally as of May are also clustered below the Mason-Dixon Line. Though Nevada saw the biggest increase, North Carolina, West Virginia, Alabama, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Texas were among the biggest winners, while North Carolina alone added more positions than New York, despite the entire state having a little more than half of the city’s population.
OK, but then you ave to live in Alabama. Or Florida. Attractive to a few, but go take a survey of 20-something’s and see how it plays.
You probably get less pushback with Charlotte, Austin, or Dallas, but it’s a slog. I remember being that 20-something and getting a great job offer in Pittsburgh. Coming from Boston. Not an easy sell. I did it and it was good, but cripes, the first 18 months was bitter.
Alabama has a lower unemployment rate than New York (3% vs 4.6%) but the wages are so low in Alabama that 30% of the employed can’t afford basic necessities. Go ahead and head south for a part time job at Walmart paying the lowest minimum wage in America ($7.25 per hour), welfare and food stamps to make up the difference, so that the politicians can use you to claim a low unemployment rate.
They want to get a Masters in Wageningen. Doesn’t everyone? Classes are in English. If you have Irish citizenship $3000 per year. Best Climate Sciences school in the world. Better than Harvard and Oxford.
I moved from New York to Houston in 1981 after Exxon offered me a 45% raise and Texas lacked a state income tax.
I rented an apartment with palm trees, swimming pools and tennis courts about a 5 minute drive from the office for $400/month. I thought I was living in a resort.
But people are voting with their feet. Look at population growth, job growth, etc. by state. Which states are losing electoral votes? And as the OP mentioned:
“The states that have seen the largest percentage gain in year-over-year job growth by the federal government’s tally as of May are also clustered below the Mason-Dixon Line.”
If a state has 10 non-farm jobs and they add 10 more, that’s 100% growth. Looking at total job growth numbers, instead of percentages, provides a more accurate picture.
Horace Greeley is my favorite Republican Socialist. It’s too bad his namesake city in Colorado often emits an odorous cow stank upon the rest of the Front Range.
Sort of. It doesn’t tell you anything about the rate of change. California has a population about four times that of North Carolina, so the absolute numbers are larger. At the same time North Carolina is see a growth rate almost four times greater than California.
The biggest single cohort of people moving to Florida continues to be 50-69 (this is also true historically) so it isn’t “jobs” that’s attracting them. It’s taxes and warmth - Northerners finally deciding they’re tired of shoveling snow.
There is a move of millennials into Florida as well, attracted by jobs and beaches, but it is smaller than the oldsters. BTW, the media age of someone leaving Florida is 32. It’s significantly higher for those moving in.
But it’s true that the South has finally developed some advantages: weather, lower prices and lower costs than the North, and for companies: less inclination to unionize, etc. That comes with a downside: lower wages as well. We were lucky, we managed to get East Coast media wages while living among South lower costs, so it worked out nicely for us. Not everybody is so lucky.
We spent 40 years taking advantage of a very blue city, Richmond, VA, where my job as a trial lawyer at a mid-sized law firm, and Ispouse’s job in IT allowed us to earn a living and accumulate some wealth. Now we are retired in a small city in a very red county, where housing, food, wine, and eating out are much cheaper and we have an army of locals willing to cut our grass, fix and paint our houses, cars and appliances as needed for a very modest wage.
The vast majority of them vote consistently to lower my income taxes at the cost of crappy schools, poor healthcare, nonexistent childcare, and a Food Lion/Walmart diet because many can’t even afford the local produce that they sell to me.
True, but retirement isn’t the issue for Greeley’s “young man”. As the chart eldemonio posted shows, for the 18-24 and 25-44 cohorts have their greatest growth in the south. By far.
However, some places are having real issues. I don’t know about Alabama, or the SE. But here in the SW water is becoming a serious problem, thanks mainly to climate change. Moving here is probably a bad idea, even if there are jobs (many high-tech and engineering jobs). The climate is great for high tech (dry…no need to dehumidify). However, PHX has 5M people all by itself…in the middle of a desert…and the mountain snow pack on which it depends is at an all time low.
