A recent study by CommercialCafe  highlights how Millennials’ wishes, dreams and needs are impacting employment centers across the country. As the study notes, the Millennial generation in the U.S. includes 73 million people, the most significant cohort in our country’s demographics, and a huge driver of culture, society, politics and economics.

CommercialCafe had conducted a study before COVID to determine the top 10 most attractive metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) for Millennials  across the U.S.

Now, two years later, there have been some major shake-ups in the results-- including the rise of San José metro area to first place in the rankings that indicate attractiveness to Millennials. The new study is online. 

The following indicators were used to create the rankings:

• Millennial population growth between 2016 and 2020
• Proportion of Millennials in the overall population in 2020
• Regional price parity
• Median Millennial household earnings (this replaced the 2019 metric on commute times, which became irrelevant with remote work during pandemic)
• Unemployment rate
• Percentage of Millennials with employer-based health insurance
• Percentage of Millennials in the labor force, with a bachelor’s degree

The previous study showed similar scores on each indicator per metro area – but that pattern changed. This year, San José metro ranked #1 in just three of the areas, but was the winner in total overall points – from 10^th before the pandemic to #1 now with 77.8 out of 100 possible points. A key factor was that the San José metro had the highest median earning for Millennia households. The median earning for Millennial households is roughly $150,806 per year across San José MSA. As such, they can expect to earn an extra $17,000 when compared to those in San Francisco metro, as well as $44,145 more than those in Boston metro.

Here is part of the description of our area from the report:

Home to Stanford University; the founding campus of California State University (CSU); and California University of Management and Technology (CALMAT), the metro area unsurprisingly received top scores for its educational attainment levels. As a matter of fact, with approximately 61% of its Millennials boasting a bachelor’s degree or higher, only Boston and San Francisco’s MSAs came even close to matching it.

Moreover, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) numbers for March 2022, unemployment in the San José metro area stood at 2.5%. Although that was only the third-lowest rate among the 10 entries, it nevertheless proved useful in offsetting some of the region’s more modest performances across other indicators, such as regional price parity (ninth place) and its Millennial demographics.

The full report is available online.  

CommercialCafe is a commercial real estate internet listing service, part of Yardi’s network of platforms. Listings on our website gain immediate exposure across the entire network, including PropertyShark and Point2. The CommercialCafe blog is an information resource with commercial real estate industry news and reports, as well as studies covering real estate development, the U.S. job market, architecture, urbanism, proptech, and design.