Site Selection Strategy to Boost Talent Acquisition & Retention

The recent pandemic created a massive shift in population across the U.S. People migrated from major cities like New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and the Bay Area to lower-cost cities such as Dallas, Phoenix, Atlanta, and Austin. There is a flight from the densely populated mega-cities as people seek a better quality of life. The long-term implication is unknown, but all indicators show this trend may not change any time soon, and points to an advantage for savvy employers.

Significant Corporate Relocations

These substantial site selection projects create an opportunity for employees to relocate to geographies with lower taxes, less expensive housing, and more attractive quality of life among other traditional site selection factors. These projects include headquarters, manufacturing plants, distribution centers, call centers, and other similar operations. Some recent, high-profile, examples include:

McKesson from San Francisco to Dallas
Caterpiller from Chicago to Dallas
AECOM from Los Angeles to Dallas
Digital Realty from San Francisco to Austin, Texas
Oracle from Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas
Hewlett-Packard Enterprise from San Francisco to Houston
Norfolk Southern from Norfolk to Atlanta

Population growth data identifies the winners and losers (and where to look next)

Two key metrics are overall net new population growth and percentage growth (the latter helps identify desirable smaller cities). We love the bottom quarter of top population growth percentage cities and the lower half of the top population decrease cities as sites for corporate relocations/new strategic facilities.