Millennials became the largest share of the American workforce last year, with adults aged 18 to 34 representing more than one-third of the labor pool. Young workers' attitudes toward work are a bit different than Gen Xers and Baby Boomers, though. The most important factor when choosing a job for millennials: a good work-life balance, according to a survey of nearly 8,000 global millennials by Deloitte.
The quest for work-life balance has made Colorado a hot destination for millennials and companies in search of talent. Take Swiss investment manager Partners Group. The firm had offices in New York, San Francisco, Houston and Sao Paulo, but chose the Denver metro area this year as the site for its Americas headquarters. The company is expected to hire several hundred employees with an average wage of $220,000.
“We chose Colorado because of its central location, as well as the high quality of life the state offers to our employees,” said David Layton, co-head of private equity for Partners when announcing the news. “Denver is one of the fastest-growing cities in the U.S., with a highly educated workforce, and it is becoming a magnet for talented professionals who are seeking dynamic careers outside of the typical financial centers."
Forbes crunched the numbers on the 401 metropolitan statistical areas and divisions in the U.S. for its 18th annual Best Places for Business and Careers. Denver nabbed the top spot for the second straight year thanks to its diverse economy, growth outlook and educated workforce.
Denver is booming with millennials, but it is not just any 20-something that companies are chasing. Jeff Lessard, who helps companies with location strategies as a consultant for Cushman & Wakefield, says most of his clients prioritize a highly educated millennial demographic in their searches. “In addition to being an excellent source of trainable labor, highly educated millennials provide cities with the type of vibrancy and creativity that companies are increasingly looking for,” says Lessard.
This year, for the first time, Forbes incorporated a measure of the share of highly educated millennials (defined as people born after 1980 with at least a bachelor's degree) in metro areas' workforces our Best Places study. The data is from a profile developed by Cushman & Wakefield Strategic Consulting using the Experian Mosiac USA database. Denver ranks fourth on the metric behind only Austin, Seattle and Tacoma with 22.6% of its total workforce meeting the criteria. Denver would have ranked No. 1 overall on Forbes' Best Places list even without the strong showing on the new metric.
Area Development magazine has surveyed hundreds of CEOs for 30 years regarding site selection factors. Labor costs and highway accessibility ranked as the top two concerns for the better part of those three decades, but for the past three years “availability of skilled labor” has been the top priority. Last year 92.9% of CEOs tabbed skilled labor as an "important" or "very important" factor in site selection compared with 80.8% for labor costs.
Our ranking of the Best Places for Business looks at the 200 largest metro areas by population in the U.S. (click here for our look at the Best Small Places for Business). We rated areas on 14 metrics related to job growth, costs (business and living), income growth, quality of life and the education of the labor force.
We leaned on Moody’s Analytics, demographer Bert Sperling, who runs Sperling’s Best Places, and the U.S. Census for our data. In addition to the millennial metric, we also factored in for the first time laws that protect people from employment discrimination based on sexual and/or gender identity in light the controversies and corporate backlash regarding recent legislation in Arizona, Indiana and North Carolina. (click here for a more detailed methodology).
Provo, Utah, ranks second this year, up two spots from 2015. The home of Brigham Young University had the fastest job growth last year among the 200 largest metro areas at 6%, as well as the second fastest over the past five years. Local companies like
Rounding out the top five are Raleigh, Seattle and Portland, Ore. Utah landed three metro areas in the top 10 with Salt Lake City and Ogden joining Provo.
Nine different states are represented in the bottom 10, with only Pennsylvania landing two spots thanks to York and Reading. Atlantic City finished dead last for the fourth straight year. The New Jersey gambling and convention hub has lost jobs at the fastest rate of in the country over the past five years and the future employment outlook is equally bleak with only Lafayette, La. expected to fare worse. Business and living costs in AC are both higher than the national average and the area has a dearth of highly educated millennials with only 5.8% of the labor force meeting that definition per Cushman & Wakefield.
Full List: The Best And Worst Places For Business And Careers
See Also: The 10 Best Cities For Future Job Growth
Bend, Ore., Heads The Best Small Cities For Business And Careers
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