Years into Dallas’ famous finance boom, the city that gave rise to Y’all Street can now claim another mark of distinction: A higher percentage of jobs from the sector than even the world’s longtime finance capital.
As of June, financial activities — a jobs category that includes finance, insurance and real estate — accounted for 10.1% of all jobs in metro Dallas, according to data recently released by the Dallas Fed. The comparable figure for New York City was 9.9%.
“Our foundation is in white collar services,” said Pia Orrenius, an economist at the Dallas Fed, of the D-FW regional economy. “Whether it’s finance or insurance or management of companies, professional scientific technical services, legal services, accounting services — that’s kind of what we do.”
But the local financial activities sector has been on a unique hot streak: Since February 2020, according to data from the regional bank, employment in the sector has grown by over 23%. In New York City, the sector has grown by 6% over the same time period, and in several other American finance centers — including Chicago, Boston and San Francisco — the sector has actually lost jobs.
As of June, Dallas had a total of 317,000 workers in financial activities, according to the adjusted data used by the Dallas Fed. The number of Dallas employees in the sector is still less than half the comparable number in New York City, but slightly more than the number in Chicago, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers.
But the 10.1% share of total employment the sector represents for Dallas is the highest of any major U.S. metro area. In Boston, the share is 9.6%, according to the Dallas Fed report, and in Chicago and San Francisco the figures are 6.9% and 6.5%. In Charlotte, N.C., according to BLS data, the figure is around 9%.
Dallas’ finance sector employment boom has coincided with a corporate headquarters surge. By the Dallas Fed’s count, Dallas added 125 companies between 2015 and 2024, with nearly half coming from California. Major companies — including some of the biggest names from Wall Street — have also been rushing to set up new regional headquarters operations in D-FW. The latest appears to be Morgan Stanley, which in June received a green light for an $18.5 million tax incentive package from the city of Dallas for a $1.3 billion Uptown project.