Talent Strategy

This week, we are pulling into Atlanta, Georgia. In addition to being the site of our 2012 Strategy and Workforce Planning Conference, this growing metropolis goes by many names: Hotlanta, ATL, and the City too Busy to Hate.  Between 2000 and 2009, the metro population grew by 29.9% and every day the city grows by 62.4% in population as 259,957 commuters make their way into work from the suburbs. Atlanta ranks 4^th in the nation for the number of Fourtune 500 companies headquartered within city boundaries. Finally, with the median age at 31.9 it is among the younger large cities in the U.S. In short, it appears the ATL is a magnet for talent. more »

Next up in the City Beat Chronicles: San Diego, California. Known as “America’s Finest City”, eighth largest city in the United States, and a hub of trade, tourism, manufacturing, and defense/military jobs, this city is home to diverse and youthful talent.  However, with the growing economic woes of the Golden State this town is getting less youthful. In a Brookings Institute study, San Diego reported the sixth biggest net loss of residents aged 25-34 between 2008 and 2010 in the U.S.   The population of San Diego proper is about 1.3 million, with the metro area weighing in at a whopping 3 million.  Like much of California, this city suffers from an unemployment rate higher than the national average at 9.2 percent. more »

Hello, my name is Carl Rhodes, and I’m the CEO of HCI.  There are three things that are unusual about this digest.  

One, and least importantly, it’s written by me.  I don’t write many digests (some might say I’m not allowed to write many digests, but let’s set that aside for now).  But I wanted to write this one.

Two, it’s late December, in which many companies are making critical decisions about their organizations and people in 2012 (often tied to budget dollars). more »

It’s back! The City Beat blog is beating its way down south for some Texas-sized talent talk.  That’s right, Austin, TX (aka the Live Music Capital of the World aka Silicon Hills).  In a recent Brookings Institution report, Austin was the fifth biggest gainer of 25-34 year-olds between 2008 and 2010 in the U.S.  With a population of 799, 446 in the city limits and approximately 1.8 million in the greater metropolitan area, Austin has a winning combination of being a “cool city” attractive to Generation Y workers (see Portland, OR) but also has the additional benefit of being a high tech city home to many IT, defense,  and bio-tech/pharma firms.   Unemployment in Austin was at 6.1% in March 2011 which is none too shabby compared with the national rate at 8.6% in November of 2011 and the Texan rate at 8.4%. more »