Workers on the Move: Job-to-Job Flow Rates at All-Time High in 2021
Job-to-job flows refers to the movement of individuals from one job to another within a specific period. Economic conditions, labor market dynamics, geographic factors, skills and education, wage growth and company policies are some of the main reasons why people tend to switch jobs. The United States has a vast and complex job market. As such, people changing their jobs and moving as a result has been a common trend for many years, especially when that job requires in-office attendance. However, this trend has been on a constant rise since 2012, with 2021 seeing the highest number of job-to-job flows, 30,861,233.
With this idea in mind and seeing the sudden increase in the job-to-job flows after the COVID-19 pandemic caused the rate in 2020 to drop to a level close to the one in 2014, we wanted to find out where people, in particular in-office workers, were moving from and where they were moving to. To do this, we looked at data from the US Census Bureau from 2021 to 2022 to determine the top metros with the highest gains and losses in terms of workers for in-office jobs.
Metros in the South See the Highest Gain Due to Job-to-Job Flows
!function(e,i,n,s){var t=”InfogramEmbeds”,d=e.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0];if(window[t]&&window[t].initialized)window[t].process&&window[t].process();else if(!e.getElementById(n)){var o=e.createElement(“script”);o.async=1,o.id=n,o.src=”https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js”,d.parentNode.insertBefore(o,d)}}(document,0,”infogram-async”);Texas and Florida are some of the most popular states for people who chose to switch jobs. Dallas and Austin are the top two metros with the highest net gain of inflow hires, 24,134 and 14,373, respectively. In Dallas, 65% of the inflow represents people who switched their jobs from another area in Texas. In Austin, the same group of people represents 78%.
Miami, FL is third on the list of the metros with the highest gain due to job-to-job flows, with 13,372 people moving here for their jobs. 68% relocated to Miami from another city within the state of Florida. Orlando and Jacksonville also made the top 10 list with the most net gain, falling in 6th and 8th place. Orlando has a net gain of 8,675 people with 78% moving from within Florida, while Jacksonville has gained 7,893 people with 79% being from the state of Florida.
Dallas and Austin, TX Juggle Workers Between Each Other
!function(e,i,n,s){var t=”InfogramEmbeds”,d=e.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0];if(window[t]&&window[t].initialized)window[t].process&&window[t].process();else if(!e.getElementById(n)){var o=e.createElement(“script”);o.async=1,o.id=n,o.src=”https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js”,d.parentNode.insertBefore(o,d)}}(document,0,”infogram-async”);The majority of people who moved to Dallas with their jobs came from Houston, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso, Tyler and Waco, 81,507. This is a significant number for companies as providing workers with the appropriate office space is essential to them getting their work done. From outside of Texas, 3,903 people came from New York, 3,206 from Chicago, 3,012 from Los Angeles and 2,049 from Washington, DC. More than half of the people who moved to Dallas are between the ages of 25 and 44 (59%) and 59% of them have at least a high school degree.
Most of the people who left Dallas did so for other major metros in Texas, including Houston, Austin and San Antonio, to name a few, with the total number adding up to 82,298. On the contrary, only 5,142 people left Dallas and the state and moved to New York, Los Angeles or Denver.
It’s interesting, however, that the second largest group of people that came to Dallas are from Austin, but also that the largest group of relocators to Austin are from Dallas. Here, 58,140 people relocated with their job from within the state of Texas, while only 4,058 people came from Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. 60% of the inflow workers fall between the ages of 25 and 44 with 59% of them having at least their GED. Most of the people who left Dallas chose to stay in-state, 50,378 people, while 2,369 people left for New York, Los Angeles and Denver.
Most Job-to-Job Inflows Occur Within the Same State
!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();The same pattern applies to two other metros in our top five with the highest net gain due to job-to-job flows, Miami, FL and Atlanta, GA. In fact, in Miami, all but one of the top 10 origin metros are from Florida. The outlier is New York, which represents 5,687 of the relocators. Also, a significant number of workers (32%) that relocated are over the age of 45, which is not surprising given the popularity the Sunshine State has with people after retirement. People who came to Atlanta are mostly fellow Georgians, except for 3,398 New Yorkers and 2,064 Miamians.
In Denver, on the other hand, job-to-job flows brought people from only four other metros in the state of Colorado – Colorado Springs (7,577), Boulder (6,920), Fort Collins (3,678) and Greeley (2,232). The other relocators (8,513) are from all over the country, including Chicago, Dallas, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Phoenix. The outflow of people is also characterized by this trend with 19,885 choosing to move to another metro in the state while another 4,891 moving out of state. 61% of the people that moved to Denver are between the ages of 25 and 44 and 62% have at least some college education.
Californians Stick to California When Switching Jobs
!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();While job hopping doesn’t always imply that the previous job was below an employee’s standards, a better career path, higher salary, more benefits and a lower cost of living in one area as opposed to another are usually reasons for which one may choose to switch jobs and relocate for work. A lower cost of living seems to be the plausible reason for which 39,381 workers moved from Los Angeles to Riverside for a new job. San Francisco, San Diego and San Jose are also some popular destinations for those leaving Los Angeles (65,729). Of the top destination metros for people leaving the City of Angels, 4,692 go to New York and 3,012 go to Dallas.
Chicago on the other hand, sees more people leaving the state altogether when switching jobs, with 6,277 moving to St. Louis, MO and 4,132 to Indianapolis, IN. In fact, only 10,791 people choose to relocate to other areas of Illinois, while 21,544 people who move out of Chicago also leave the state. This can have significant impact on office real estate as companies may need to downsize their office spaces to accommodate for the loss of workforce.
The same pattern can be seen in New York where Philadelphia, PA (20,681) and Trenton, NJ (10,390) are the top destination metros for those leaving the Big Apple. With only 22,102 people choosing to relocate to other metros in the state of New York, 10,467 opted to remain on the East Coast choosing either Bridgeport, CT or Boston, MA as their destination, 5,741 moved to Los Angeles, CA and 5,538 to Miami, FL.
In Washington, DC the situation is similar to that in Chicago and New York, with the majority of people (44,167) moving to Baltimore, MD, Richmond, VA and Virginia Beach, VA. The other job hoppers opted for metros across the nation, including the East and West Coasts, as well as some of the Southern states.
On the contrary, people from Riverside preferred to relocate to other metros in California. In the top 10 destination metros, only Phoenix, AZ, which falls in tenth place with 536 choosing to move there for work, is from outside of CA. The majority of job hoppers from Riverside moved to Los Angeles (29,901), with San Diego (5,395) and San Francisco (3,541) being the next most popular destination metros.
Conclusion
It’s human nature to look for better opportunities all around us and this also applies to jobs. Whether it’s financial benefits, a better career path, a metro with a lower cost of living or a state with warmer weather, people will take advantage of a new job opportunity that can provide them with whatever it is that they are missing at their current job. And while sometimes this may even imply relocating to a new city, as in-office attendance remains essential for many industries, increasing job-to-job flow rates shows that many people are more interested in being content at work than being tied down to a place.
Methodology