In a study by the esteemed real estate group, CBRE’s, Phoenix was named as one of the nation’s up and coming financial services hubs. This study focused on finding affordable national markets with high concentrations of skilled workers with technology backgrounds.
The CBRE’s report concluded that markets deemed “active” have seen significant increases in growth over the past 6 years. Since 2010, cities such as San Antonio, Columbus, Ohio, Nashville, Dallas/Fort Worth, Jacksonville, Salt Lake City, Tampa, Richmond, and Charlotte have joined Phoenix as shining beacons of growth in the industry. The emergence of these “new cities of finance” as Julie Whelan, CBRE’s head of Occupier Research in the Americas calls them. is largely because regulatory pressure, economic conditions, and technology disruptions are forcing the industry to think outside the box.
In addition, the report selected five “next-generation” markets based on their abundance of skilled labor and affordable real estate. The markets were further deemed by an examination of their labor costs, market education levels, and other variables. As a result many of these so called “next generation” markets were labeled as ideal locations for both recruiting and employing the types of workers the financial services industry requires. Specifically, Phoenix ranked highly as a city that offered an attractive mix of labor cost and availability for shared service positions such as accounting, human resources, legal and finance. Phoenix was also listed as a market perfect for recruiting compliance workers, such as quantitative analysts, mathematicians, and compliance officers.
Kevin Calihan, the senior vice president of the firm’s Phoenix office, praised the city as a prime choice for the industry when he said “Phoenix is a stable and low-cost location for companies with high-skill requirements. The metro area offers low costs of living, affordable wages and a diverse and – this is key – scalable workforce. With one of the deepest financial services labor pools in the county, this is a market that can offer firms cost effective and sustainable growth. Phoenix is the second most active market for financial activities employment growth, with a 15.2 percent increase since 2010; and, Phoenix is seventh in overall FA employment with 103,700 financial activities jobs.”
Labor, its availability and cost, will continue to be the driving force behind the financial services industry’s push to discover new and emerging markets across the country. As long as that remains the case than Phoenix will continue to benefit from this drive to invest in smaller “active” markets. If you would like more information about the CBRE and their report you can visit: www.cbre.com
