Dennis RomeroNearly 60 percent of L.A. County residents have pondered moving as a result of high housing costs, according to a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll released this week. Where are they going?
The folks at jobs listing site ZipRecruiter recently looked at data for 1.4 million job seekers and 20.4 million job applications to figure out the top would-be destinations of professionals across the nation. Angeleno job seekers, who claimed a median salary of $57,300, aspired most to work in San Diego.
The would-be destination was consistent with a nationwide trend of younger professionals moving from larger cities to smaller, regional ones, according to ZipRecruiter chief economist Cathy Barrera. “A lot of young people are interested in moving away from the big cities for lifestyle reasons,” she says.
“It's also about the cost of living, how easy it is to get around a city,” Barrera says.
Still, not everyone looking to leave L.A. is hoping to slow down. The second most popular would-be destination is San Francisco, followed by New York, San Jose and Phoenix. Barrera believes the Bay Area and Silicon Valley are popular for their tech industry opportunities. New York is, well, New York — the No. 1 would-be destination for job hunters in America, according to the data. But Phoenix fits the trend of movement toward smaller metros that ZipRecruiter found, she says.
“A large number of Angelenos are wanting to move for better pay and cheaper housing costs,” she says. “The fastest-growing cities are regional cities.”
While much has been said of L.A. residents moving out of town as a result of high rents and real estate costs, it's pretty clear that folks continue to move to Los Angeles, too. ZipRecruiter determined that L.A. is the second most popular target for job hunters. It's followed by Chicago, Dallas and Houston.
“People moving out of L.A. are already being replaced by wealthier people,” Larry Gross, executive director of the nonprofit Coalition for Economic Survival, argued when we asked him earlier this week about the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll.
If this keeps up, L.A. could be losing out on a generation of younger creatives. Millennials, for example, are reaching an age where they're starting to think about home ownership. “As they're aging, we'll see them come into the home-owning market,” Barrera says.
Credit: ZipRecruiter
Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.