Viewing entries tagged
job and population growth

Charlotte job growth continues it’s growth trajectory

CHARLOTTE — Amazon nixed Charlotte’s $270 million economic incentives package, snubbing the Queen City in the process.  But with the announcement of four major economic development initiatives in the past four weeks that are set to add as many as 2,715 good paying jobs to the economy, the Queen City intends to cultivate a strong workforce to attract and retain companies and skilled individuals.

Companies expand in locations where they can either find talent or attract talent to join the region, said Tracy Dodson, assistant city manager for the City of Charlotte.

“If you build a great city, and you build a great region, you attract the talent and you retain the talent,” said Dodson.  “When there’s a city within a region where people want to live, companies can thrive, and their employees can thrive.”

And Charlotte appears to be attracting and retaining talent, with the region growing at nearly 14 percent since 2010, ranking among the top 35 fastest-growing cities by population in 2017 by the U.S. Census Bureau.

That’s more than 300,000 people that have relocated to Charlotte in seven years, and the Queen City nets roughly 60 new residents per day.  And that’s good for Charlotte, said Dodson, and good for companies that are expanding or looking to relocate to the region.

“People want to be here,” said Dodson.  “We’re trying to leverage that with companies.”

Full article HERE

Source: WRAL Tech Wire

Surprise: This Southern Hub Might Have the Best Talent Pipeline in Tech

North Carolina is home to a bustling epicenter for tech startups, brainy talent, and killer barbecue.

A hyper-educated workforce means the Research Triangle, the North Carolina region comprising Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh--Inc.'s No. 3 Surge City--has a booming and brainy startup scene. Once known for tobacco and textiles, the area has reinvented itself as a hub equally well-versed in tech and food.

Startup Neighborhoods

Most residents never thought they'd see the day, but downtown Durham is now a cultural and entrepreneurial hotbed. American Tobacco Campus, once a crime-ridden stretch of abandoned cigarette factories, is now a sprawling expanse of outdoor cafés, green space, and startup offices. Sports-scheduling app maker Teamworks is around the corner from the massive American Underground co-working space, which houses more than 80 companies, including fintech startup LoanWell.

Raleigh's Warehouse District, another recently revitalized precinct, is home to Videri Chocolate Factory, as well as HQ Raleigh's 20,000-square-foot flagship co-working space. Lunchgoers hit the original Happy + Hale for ahi poke bowls and cold-pressed juices.

$96,173

Average salary of a software engineer here --17 percent below the national average.

Source: Glassdoor

$1.1 billion

Funding raised by North Carolina startups in 2017, up 36 percent from the previous year.

Source: Council for Entrepreneurial Development

$25.23

The average annual asking office rent per square foot.

Source: JLL's Q2 2018 Office Insight report on the Raleigh-Durham market

47 percent

Portion of the local talent pool with a bachelor's or higher degree.

Source: JLL's Q2 2018 Office Insight report on the Raleigh-Durham market

The Downtown Chapel Hill area, located at the northwest corner of the UNC campus, is home to a Google outpost and a handful of co-working spaces.

Talent Pipeline

The home to Duke, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and NC State offers a hyper-educated workforce (ahead of San Francisco, according to NerdWallet). All three schools have well-regarded entrepreneurship programs, as well as angel funds through which alumni can invest in current students' ventures. The area's startups are software-heavy, thanks in part to the schools' strong engineering and computer science studies, but there are plenty of exceptions, like beekeeping startup Bee Downtown, which Leigh- Kathryn Bonner founded while at NC State.

UNC-backed Launch Chapel Hill offers a 22-week accelerator program that accepts eight to 12 startups. Graduates include Seal the Seasons, which freezes and distributes farmers' crops.

Full Article HERE

Source: Inc.com

Raleigh (#3), Charlotte (#13), and Durham (#16) rank in the top 35 largest metro cities with most job opportunities

35 Fast Growing Cities With the Most Job Opportunities

People are flocking to these booming cities.

If you're looking for an up-and-coming city with a growing business scene, you won't find popular destinations like New York City or Los Angeles on any list.

Rather, Texas and parts of the Mountain region are taking over and considered the "biggest boomtowns" in America.

That's according to MagnifyMoney, which looked at the 100 largest metropolitan areas around the US and their change from 2011-2016 to determine which cities have the biggest influx of people, most work opportunities, and biggest business growth based on US Census data.

To calculate the ranking, every metro was scored on a scale of 100 in three categories:

  • People and housing: How many people are flocking to the area and is the metro keeping up, considering total population and housing units.

  • Workforce and employment opportunities: Unemployment rates, civilian labor force, and median earnings.

  • Growing industry: Rate of business and industry growth, including number of establishments and paid employees per paid period.

Each category was scored relative to other metros and looking at positive and negative changes in the area. The biggest positive change scores a 100, except unemployment rate, which was reversed in respect to the scale.

Below are the top 35 metros that showed the most people, business, and opportunity growth over a five-year period.

Source: Inc.com

Full List HERE

Employment and Affordability Driving Growth in the U.S. Southeast

The Carolinas

Job growth is solid in the major metropolitan areas of North and South Carolina, with large metro areas accounting for most of the growth in the two states. Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina, and Charleston, South Carolina, rank among the fastest-growing metro areas in the country, says Mark Vitner, managing director and senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte.

“This past decade has seen a move back into the urban centers that has benefited the Carolinas’ larger MSAs [metropolitan statistical areas] the most,” he adds. “Young people are flocking back into the cities, and businesses are moving back toward the city center in order to attract those workers.”

Employment in North Carolina is expected to increase 2.3 percent this year and personal income by 4.4 percent, Vitner says. New single-family home starts will expand by 9.5 percent, but following several years of strong gains, multifamily housing starts in North Carolina remain essentially flat. Employment in South Carolina will rise 2.7 percent and personal incomes by 4.7 percent, with new home starts up 7.7 percent and multifamily starts rising 2.5 percent.

“The Carolinas are being driven by a combination of expansions by new industry into the state and some revival in traditional sectors, including textiles and furniture,” adds Vitner. “Retirees moving to the region are helping drive new home construction and growth in health care and professional services. South Carolina continues to benefit from aggressive economic development efforts. Manufacturing activity has held up solidly, with the automotive sector and aerospace industries leading the way.”

Out-of-state capital is flowing into the Carolinas, says Chang.

“Investors are drawn by more affordable entry costs and the potential for higher returns than are available in their home markets,” he says. “The increasing supply of new multifamily properties near downtown cores is keeping institutional investors active. First-year returns in this tier of the market typically begin in the 5 percent range in Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro/Winston-Salem [in North Carolina], Greenville/Spartanburg, Columbia, and Charleston [in South Carolina].”

In the Charlotte city center, an estimated 5.3 million square feet (492,000 sq m) of office space, more than 775,000 square feet (72,000 sq m) of retail space, 9,725 housing units, and 2,600 hotel rooms are either under construction or planned, says Jon Wilson, principal at Raleigh-based consulting firm Kimley-Horn.

Kimley-Horn is involved with a number of developments, including Atlanta-based Portman Holdings’ 19-story, 370,000-square-foot (34,000 sq m) 615 South College, which is scheduled to be completed early this summer.

“The city continues to be a hot spot for a highly educated and skilled workforce—some 17,500 new degreed residents move to Charlotte each year—and improved mobility will play a role in catalyzing future growth,” Wilson says. Later this year, the Lynx Blue Line extension will be completed, allowing people to travel on light rail from Interstate 485 in southwest Charlotte through Uptown to the University of North Carolina–Charlotte in the northeast, he says. The city also broke ground in mid-January on the second phase of the CityLynx Gold Line streetcar.

Walkable urban and mixed-use communities are definitely on the rise in many of the state’s cities, says Gary Cline, president and managing principal at Cline Design Associates of Raleigh.

“As our area rapidly grows, more people are seeking residency in urban cores and mixed-use communities where they can walk or bike to work, dining, and retail,” Cline says. “The Research Triangle office market has also made a large comeback, with less than 10 percent overall vacancy. Some submarkets like downtown Durham report less than 1 percent vacancy in Class A space.”

Demand is strong for mixed-use developments such as Kane Realty’s Smokey Hollow–Peace Street mixed-use project in Raleigh, which will have 434 multifamily units and 61,000 square feet (6,000 sq m) of retail space, with estimated completion in 2019. The project was designed by Cline Design. Another project in downtown Durham scheduled to begin construction later this year is Northwood Ravin’s Van Alen, which will have 418 units in 12 stories.

Read Full Article HERE

Source: Urban Land Institute