Worker Availability Changing Where Business Locates

The title could easily indicate a movement of business in a local area to accommodate where people want to live. However, there is another and much larger trend that’s changing where businesses locate by much larger distances.
According to a report from Cushman & Wakefield titled “Human Capital: The War for Talent and its Effect on Real Estate,” there’s a massive shortage of available workers between the ages of 18 and 64 developing in many areas of the country. The report predicts that this trend will cause a lot of changes in real estate markets over the next couple of decades.
In the past decade, there were more than 2 million workers each year in the 18 to 64 year age group entering the labor market. Today that number has dropped to around 750,000, no matter what you’re hearing about the unemployment rates. The report estimates that by the year 2020, the annual number entering the workforce will decrease to around 250,000 people. People over 65 are leaving the workforce much faster than new younger workers are entering.
So, how is this going to influence real estate? Many companies are considering or planning moving their major operations and headquarters to more 24-7 cities. Those are the cities where young Millennials want to live, in a more fast-paced environment. San Francisco, New York and Chicago are major examples.
When these companies move and bring in or hire workers, housing demand increases quickly, and rents have been rising dramatically in cities benefiting from corporate relocation's. Rents in these large cities are at all-time highs, and they’re still rising. Many cities are trying to take advantage of this trend by creating technology “corridors” or small business start up incubation areas. However, this isn’t hitting the bulls eye when it comes to the Millennial group.
They want to be in a city with choices for alternative transportation, and definitely they want a fast-paced round-the-clock lifestyle. Cities can’t just create this environment, so those cities already accommodating these demands are going to be the prime beneficiaries of corporate relocation and rising populations.