Passive Migration: Denver Wins Big as Financial Firms Relocate to Cut Costs

[IAMX 3,055]

Quote

Wedged into a rent-controlled two-bedroom apartment near San Francisco's famed Haight-Ashbury neighborhood and already overrun by their son's toys, Kari Droller and her husband weighed having a second child against the skyrocketing costs of a larger home nearby.

 

Instead, Ms. Droller, managing director of Charles Schwab Inc.'s ETF platform, put in for a transfer to Denver, joining a tide of financial professionals who are forsaking high-cost coastal meccas for America's inland cities.

Traditional finance hubs have yet to recover all the jobs lost during the recession, but the industry is booming in places like Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Dallas. The migration has accelerated as investment firms face declining profitability and soaring real-estate costs.

The market's shift to low-cost passive investing compounds those difficulties, pushing firms to look for new ways to cut costs.

Charles Schwab is emblematic. Since announcing its relocation strategy in early 2013, the company has shrunk its San Francisco headquarters to fewer than 1,300 people, a 45% decrease. Its 47-acre campus south of Denver is now Schwab's largest office, employing almost 4,000 people. An expanded office in Austin, Texas, will be completed next year, and construction is underway on a new location near Dallas.

"San Francisco is a wonderful place, but unfortunately it's an expensive place from a real estate standpoint," said Brian McDonald, a senior vice president for Schwab. "So we had to identify other places where we could make things work."

While the finance industry has been relocating entry-level jobs since the late 1980s, today's moves are claiming higher-paid jobs in human resources, compliance and asset management, chipping away at New York City's middle class, said Kathryn Wylde, president and chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit that represents the city's business leadership.

 

http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/07/26/passive-migration-denver-wins-big-as-financial-firms-relocate-to-cut-costs.html

 

Texas has also been a huge beneficiary of jobs lost from CA and NY. Downside of course is they're bringing a lot of Democrats.

 

CO has already turned blue as a result.. a lot more votes to overcome in TX.

 

 

Edited July 26, 2017 by IAMX

[bcking 3,157]

I'm a NY to Houston transplant, for job and cost of living reasons. I love how many people here are like me. Houston hasn't fit the Texas stereotype at all since I moved here and I'm quite pleasantly surprised.

Edited July 26, 2017 by bcking

[IAMX 3,055]

1 minute ago, bcking said:

I'm a NY to Houston transplant, for job and cost of living reasons. I love how many people here are like me. Houston hasn't fit the Texas stereotype at all since I moved here and I'm quite pleasantly surprised.

Honestly you find that a lot in places that are often stereotyped as "redneck".

 

Take Calgary. People in BC and the GTA (Toronto) often consider Calgary a hillbilly city.. yet downtown are like 80% people dressed in business attire, which includes the migrants from various backgrounds.

 

I also find places like this that adhere more to local cultural values to be better for assimilation by foreigners as well. I never saw people in the GTA celebrating any sort of Canadian heritage events. In Calgary, I see Arabs, Asians, and everyone else celebrating Stampede and Alberta heritage events, and no one thinks anything of it. 

 

Busting da stereotypes.