The geography of the financial industry is rapidly changing, and Dallas-Fort Worth has arguably been the greatest beneficiary.
Financial jobs are swiftly moving to Dallas, Austin, Charlotte, Miami, Atlanta, Nashville, and Phoenix, according to a report from JLL Research and Oxford Economics.
Traditional powerhouses like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. have been steadily losing jobs since 2019 to these emerging financial centers, according to The Dallas Morning News.
DFW stands out as the fastest-growing financial services hub in the country, adding 32,000 new jobs in banking, insurance, investment management, and accounting since 2019, according to the report.
Only New York City has more overall financial service industry jobs. In an interview with The Dallas Express last month, Ed Curtis, CEO of YTexas, said that Texas could eventually challenge New York as the central economic hub of the United States.
“If you look at Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America, they are expanding greatly here. Schwab is already in Texas, and Chase is employing more people in Texas than they are in New York,” Curtis said in an exclusive interview.
“Ten years from now, we might be the financial center in the U.S. We may not take over New York, but we might be a close second,” Curtis said.
Last year, Goldman Sachs announced it is building a $500 million campus in downtown Dallas, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Texas’ diversified economy makes it a stalwart of economic growth.
The influx of financial jobs to the metroplex bodes well for local university business schools.
“Over half of the undergraduates from the Class of 2022 and just under 40% of full-time MBAs secured finance-related roles after graduation, with both groups also experiencing record compensation. Not only are Cox [SMU’s business school] students benefiting from new recruiting relationships stemming from firms moving their headquarters to Texas, but established partners such as Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo, who are expanding their Dallas footprints, are also hungry for more talent,” SMU Senior Assistant Dean Jason Rife told The Dallas Express.
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon also spoke highly of the area’s talent pool.
“Obviously all of us at Goldman Sachs are very excited about what we have going on in Dallas and what the future holds for us in this great city,” Solomon told The Dallas Morning News.
“One of the things that makes Texas so incredible is you have an incredible secondary education system here, both public and private,” Solomon said. “It creates an enormous pipeline of talented young individuals. People come down here to go to school, and they actually want to stay.”
While jobs and industry are on the rise in DFW, Dallas proper has been steadily losing residents to the suburbs.
From 2020 to 2021, Dallas lost 14,777 people, according to U.S. Census data. At the same time, Fort Worth gained 13,000 residents. Frisco, Denton, and McKinney grew by 7,933, 5,844, and 5,568, respectively, according to D Magazine.
The exodus from Dallas may be driven partly by the rise in crime and vagrancy, given consistent polling data suggesting that these issues are top concerns for residents of the city.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance (MDHA) said in its 2022 State of the Homeless Address that “on any given night” over 4,000 homeless and vagrant people are on the streets of Dallas.
“The most concerning figure is the rise of the chronically homeless population from little more than 500 in 2019 and 2020 to over 1,000 in 2022,” MDHA reported. These findings are “consistent with national trends, which show a surge in chronic homelessness by more than 40% since 2016.”
This “scourge of homelessness,” as Mayor Johnson referred to it during his State of the City address in November, contributes in turn to the city’s rising crime rates. Dallas County logged nearly 5,000 arrests of homeless and vagrant people in 2022, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
A recent citizens poll conducted by The Dallas Express found that 52% of respondents believed that homelessness, vagrancy, and panhandling are all severe problems in Dallas.
The threat of becoming a victim of a violent crime is also twice the rate in Dallas as compared to the rest of Texas, according to Neighborhood Scout. The likelihood of becoming a victim of property crime in Dallas is 1 in 27, compared to 1 in 44 statewide.
