Dallas surpasses New York in share of financial sector employment

New jobs data shows the continued growth of Dallas’ financial sector, with financial activities now accounting for a larger share of employment in Dallas than in New York City. 

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, “financial activities” now make up 10.1% of all employment in Dallas, surpassing New York City’s 9.9%, as of new data tracked through June. The Dallas Fed considers financial activities to span jobs within finance, insurance, and real estate. 

Since February 2020, Dallas financial-activities employment has jumped 23.2%, compared with 6% in New York. Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco remain below their pre-pandemic levels of financial activities jobs, while Dallas’ 10.1% share is more than any U.S. metro area. The 317,000 financial-activities workers in Dallas remain less than half of New York City’s total. 

“Our foundation is in white collar services,” Pia Orrenius, an economist at the Dallas Fed, told the Dallas Morning News. “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.” 

The financial boom in Dallas—newly nicknamed “Y’all Street”—included the recent trading debut of the Texas Stock Exchange with institutional backing from BlackRock, Charles Schwab, and Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs is building an 800,000-square foot campus in Dallas that will host more than 5,000 employees and is supposed to open in 2028. 

“Dallas has always been the financial hub of Texas, while Houston has oil and gas, and Austin touts tech,” Andrew Herzog, an advisor at Texas-based RIA The Watchman Group, told InvestmentNews. “As corporations and their employees, small business owners, and high-net-worth people from high-tax states move here, Y'all Street is being supercharged now.” 

The Dallas Fed says that 125 companies between 2015 and 2024 relocated corporate headquarters to Dallas, with 47% coming from California and 6.4% from New York. Herzog says that staffing and recruiting practices for local RIAs are changing to account for the area’s continued growth. The Watchman Group has been based in the Dallas suburb of Plano for 22 years, while Herzog grew up in Dallas and attended the University of Dallas. 

“RIAs began hiring more advisors to handle this influx. With more advisors comes more back-office operations to handle the mechanics for everyone too,” said Herzog. “CFP [certified financial planner] recruitment is fierce now—most of wealth management demands it, and interviews are more elaborate and time-consuming than before.” 

RBC Wealth Management recruited a Dallas-based $1.6 billion advisor team from Stifel last month, while MAI Capital Management acquired a Dallas-based RIA in June. Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson told Inc. that Morgan Stanley is in “advanced discussions” about bringing a $1.3 billion operational hub to Dallas, with the lack of state income tax in Texas as one attraction. 

“The obvious answer is taxes and cost-of-living,” Herzog said of migration to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. “DFW is far more affordable than either coast, and because of its Central Time Zone, it's easier for financial firms to serve clients nationwide.”