Hot Markets for Attracting and Retaining Top Talent
Greater employee choice — the ability to be in control of how, when, and where one works — is quickly becoming an employer’s most powerful tool for attracting and retaining top talent in today’s volatile job market.
Flexible workspace plays an important part in this new shift towards more adaptable arrangements, allowing employees to work when and where it leads to better engagement, productivity, and life-work balance.
The rise of hybrid and remote work has created another advantage: By busting through the barriers of only sourcing workers from your immediate area, you are able to open up your talent pool to the best employees from across the country or the globe.
These workers can contribute to your company in countless ways, from introducing innovative ideas and solutions to contributing to a better company culture.
So, where should an enterprise employer look when considering how to maximize its ability to attract and retain workers? These are the hottest job markets in the United States right now.
Where Workers Want to Be
The Wall Street Journal and Moody’s Analytics recently conducted a survey of 300 metro areas to find the best job markets across the country, ranking such factors as low unemployment rates, job growth, and wage increases.
The research revealed some patterns and a lot of commonalities: The areas are concentrated in five mostly Southern states and in mid-sized cities (all under a population of 2.3 million residents). They’re located in areas that ostensibly offer a better quality of life, with hospitable year-round climates and low state income taxes.
Based on these determinants, the top five U.S. job markets are:
- Austin, Texas
- Nashville, Tennessee
- Raleigh, North Carolina
- Salt Lake City, Utah
- Jacksonville, Florida
Bigger cities in the South also fared well, including Atlanta, which ranked #6 on the list, and Dallas at #11. These trends also fit in with our own 2021 Year in Review Preferred Office Network data, which shows our biggest client demand coming from the Southern region of the U.S.
What Makes a Job Market Heat Up?
As people adjusted to spending more time at home during the pandemic, priorities shifted. People wanted more space, more connection to nature, and more affordability.
During this time of disruption, cities struggled to adapt to lower foot traffic, opening up opportunities for smaller markets to stake their claim in new and exciting ways.
MakeMyMove.com, an Indianapolis-based online directory of communities across the country that offers incentive programs to lure new residents, currently lists 53 towns in 24 states and Puerto Rico that feature cash and other benefits – largely seeking to entice remote workers from expensive cities.
Though the concept came about before the pandemic, the movement gained momentum with the expansion of remote work and the loss of social interaction that frequently give big cities their allure.
In smaller cities such as Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Topeka, Kansas, intriguing incentives are sweetening the deal for workers looking for a change of pace and an abundance of space.
How Coworking Meets Your Employees’ Needs
We have found that employees value flexibility, freedom, and life-work balance more than ever, and the most successful organizations are finding effective ways to build that adaptability into their business plans.
Offering coworking opportunities in places where employees want to live and work enhances your company’s reputation when attracting and retaining top talent and helps to build strong, successful, and sustainable teams.
