Job growth for young & educated: city vs. suburbs
Is job growth for the young and educated slipping all over the Atlanta metro or just in the outer regions?
Bizjournals.com reports that the metro area ranks low when it comes to providing opportunities for men and women getting started in their careers (#52 out of 65 metros in the US). Their criteria for the ranking: strong growth rates, moderate costs of living, and substantial pools of young adults who are college-educated and employed.
And yet a USA Today article from a couple of months ago reported that, according to census data, the City of Atlanta saw a 61% increase in 25- to 34-year-olds who have a four-year degree or higher and live within 3 miles of the city’s central business district.
These stats seem to tell two different stories. My take on this: job growth for young, educated people in the metro may be lagging, but it doesn’t reflect what’s happening specifically in intown Atlanta. The significant increase we’ve seen of young, educated folks in the neighborhoods nearest the intown business districts is surely a sign that the job growth here is healthy for that group.
My main concern with job growth in the city is the shortage of work for those without college educations (such as manufacturing jobs). Focusing exclusively on luring jobs for the college-educated leaves many Atlantans at a loss. I hope that continued job growth provides a wider range of opportunities to benefit the full spectrum of Atlantans.
