Dallas is claiming a new title: the Wall Street of the South.
Traditional financial centers (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, and Washington DC) have been gradually losing jobs since 2019 due to the pandemic.
Those jobs are moving to fast-growing financial centers such as Dallas, Austin, Atlanta, Charlotte, Miami, Nashville and Phoenix, according to a report from JLL Research and Oxford Economics.
Since 2019, Dallas has led the nation in financial services job growth, adding 32,000 jobs in banking, insurance, investment management, accounting and other fields. Dallas currently ranks second only to New York City in overall financial services jobs.
“The city has a strong and diversified economy, which has driven job growth in recent years,” said JLL Managing Director Tory Littlejohn. “Additionally, Dallas' low cost of living, business-friendly environment and large talent pool make it an attractive location.”
Traditional financial services centers still account for 22% of the total financial services market and have recovered 97% of pre-pandemic employment levels. And New York still has more than twice as many financial services jobs as Dallas, Littlejohn said.
“Companies are always likely to have a flagship location in the Big Apple,” she says. “While Dallas has a strong and diverse economy, it does not have the same level of infrastructure and resources as New York City to support the growth of its financial services industry.”
The movement of jobs to more affordable markets accelerated during the pandemic. Since 2016, employment in the growing financial hub has soared by nearly 25%. In traditional financial markets, employment growth was less than 1%.
Growth markets Atlanta and Charlotte followed Dallas in adding the most finance jobs since 2019, with both cities adding 13,000 new jobs.
Financial giants that have long had a presence in Dallas, including Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase, are accelerating their growth in the area. Wells Fargo announced in October that it will build a new corporate campus in Irving that will house more than 3,000 employees by 2025.
Goldman Sachs expects 5,000 employees to work at its new downtown Dallas office campus, scheduled to open in 2026.
Other major financial institutions have expanded into the growing North Texas region in recent years.
In early 2021, Charles Schwab moved its headquarters from San Francisco to Westlake following its merger with TD Ameritrade. Another California-based financial services company, First Foundation, followed suit and moved to The Crescent in Uptown Dallas.
Also in 2021, Vanguard selected Plano for its fifth U.S. office, leasing space in Liberty Mutual's tower at Legacy West. It houses employees of Vanguard's Personal Advisor Services division, which manages $231 billion in client assets.
San Antonio-based Frost Bank will begin aggressive expansion into the Dallas market in 2021, with plans to open 28 new branches. Last year, payroll processing giant Paycom opened a 150,000-square-foot operations center in Grapevine that will house 1,000 employees.
Boston-based Fidelity has approximately 9,000 employees across four offices in Dallas-Fort Worth, including a large campus in Westlake.
“Our population is exploding and we have the ability to hire for all aspects of the financial services industry, from back office to investment banking,” Littlejohn said. “While we may never claim the top spot, we may come close to having a similar number of financial services employees in North Texas.”
