Tech Talent Markets

Economy & Finance
1

CBRE data on tech talent markets. Changes are from 2015 to 2020.

Couple observations:

  1. Did not realize Canada is on fire. Toronto is the 3rd biggest in NA right after the Bay and NYC, and has grown 43% (!!) in 5 years. Montreal is at No.10, 31% growth rate and Vancouver at No. 17 with 36% growth rate (!!!).

  2. Seattle is the fastest growing market in the US, at No. 7 with 35% growth.

  3. The other fast growing US markets: Denver and Charlotte at 31%, SLC 34%, Portland 28%.

  4. Austin is smaller than Baltimore and Detroit. :thinking:

2

Even in the Bay Area, the tech talent is only 10.9% of the total work force. That’s crazy, since people talk and act like everyone in the Bay Area works in tech. That’s also all tech workers not just the ones that work for the top-tier companies in terms of comp. The percent working for those companies is probably under 1% concentration.

Austin has a much higher concentration than Detroit (7.5% vs. 4.5%). Detroit is just a bigger metro area, so their total number if higher.

It’d be interesting to see the home price appreciation over the same time period. I wonder if it correlates with % change or total % concentration. It might reveal a tipping point where home price appreciation accelerates. It could be informative in terms of predicting the next hot RE markets.

3

Austin has a diversified :+1: economy, not a lopsided economy depending on tech.

Baltimore MSA also has more people than Austin MSA.

4