Dallas Outshines Chicago and LA as a Financial Hub: Report
More than 380,000 people working in the financial industry reside in Dallas, Bloomberg reported
Dallas is a new darling for Wall Street firms.
During the pandemic, the Dallas-Forth Worth metropolitan area became the No. 2 spot for finance jobs, blowing past both Chicago and Los Angeles, Bloomberg reported. More than 380,000 people working in the industry reside in Dallas, the outlet said, citing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
This is a notable shakeup from May 2022 figures, released earlier this year by the BLS, which showed Dallas trailing the Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., metropolitan areas by wide margins.
New York still remains the top city for finance jobs with 809,000 people employed in the industry, according to Bloomberg.
With the rise in remote work during and after the pandemic, Wall Street firms and executives have been moving away from traditional hub cities in New York and California, lured to the Sun Belt by warmer climates, cheaper housing, and lower or — in the case of Texas — no state income taxes. This shift has reportedly resulted in a loss of almost $1 trillion in assets from New York — and the largest expansion of the finance industry in Dallas since the oil bust in the 1980s.
In May, Goldman Sachs expanded to Dallas to create a regional hub that will be the firm’s largest U.S. campus outside of New York.
Wells Fargo’s $455 million office development in the Dallas suburb of Irving is also well underway, and is expected to be completed in 2025.
JPMorgan Chase has more than 16,000 employees in Dallas, more than quadrupling its presence in the city over the last two decades.
Financial firms take up about 28 million square feet of office space in the Dallas area, Bloomberg reported, citing figures from Cushman & Wakefield. That’s second only to New York.
Across all industries, Dallas saw a 50% net gain in corporate headquarters in the past year, a report from Hire a Helper published in June shows. Texas saw the second-highest net gain of corporate headquarters into the state at 71%, second only to Florida.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise moved its headquarters to Houston from San Jose, Calif., in early 2022. Charles Schwab Corp. moved its headquarters to Westlake, Texas, from San Francisco in 2020.
However, workers in the financial industry in Dallas are paid almost 30% less than those in New York, averaging $102,000 a year, according to Bloomberg. This is largely due to the types of jobs available in Texas, which tend to be geared toward engineering, customer service and loan processing.
