24 Cities Workers Are Flocking To — And Fleeing From — The Most
We all have our reasons for relocating. Maybe it’s a new job, an opportunity to be near friends and family, or simply an effort to lower your cost of living.
Whatever the explanation, it’s clear that much of the U.S. workforce is on the move. LinkedIn collected data on 211 million users for its January 2024 Workforce Report. The trends reveal which cities are most attractive to workers at the start of 2024 and which are sending people packing.
Places Gaining Workers
1. North Port-Sarasota, FL
More workers flocked to the North Port-Sarasota area in 2023 than any other city in the U.S. For every 10,000 LinkedIn members in this Florida metropolitan area, 107 made North Port-Sarasota their new home in the last 12 months.
2. Tampa Bay, FL
The Tampa Bay region attracted the second-highest number of workers who moved in 2023. Compared to Sarasota, Tampa is home to almost seven times more residents and its population skews much younger.
3. Charlotte, NC
Charlotte is one of the fastest-growing cities in the U.S., coming in sixth place in a 2022 review of Census data. On LinkedIn’s list, it was the third-most popular metro area for workers to relocate.
4. Jacksonville, FL
Yet another Florida city is drawing workers in droves. Jacksonville was the fourth most popular place on the list, falling short of Charlotte, North Carolina, by just a hair.
5. Austin, TX
While smaller than other cities in Texas, Austin was the most popular spot for workers to move to in the Lone Star state. Less than a million people live in Austin proper, but more than two million call the metro area their home.
6. Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC
Like Charlotte, the Raleigh metro area has explosively grown in recent years. But Raleigh is growing even faster than Charlotte, coming in second place according to Census data. However, on LinkedIn’s list, it was only the sixth-most popular region that workers moved to in 2023.
7. Nashville, TN
Music City had the seventh-highest number of worker transplants in the last 12 months. I like to think some people came to Nashville for a bachelor or bachelorette party and loved it so much that they packed up their things and moved. After all, it’s been a hot spot for such celebrations for many years.
8. Dallas-Fort Worth, TX
In eighth place overall is Dallas-Forth Worth, an already huge metro area on track to house over eight million people by 2028. Workers make up a large piece of that population boom, as we can see by how popular the area is for new transplants in 2023 alone.
9. Orlando, FL
Up for a visit to the Magic Kingdom? It certainly won’t be a trek to get there for the thousands of people who moved to the Theme Park Capital of the World in 2023. Overall, the Central Florida city was LinkedIn’s ninth-most popular location that workers moved to.
10. Houston, TX
Most workers who moved to Houston relocated from major metropolitan areas like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Atlanta. Workers from New York City made up the most significant chunk of new Houston residents, with two out of every 10,000 Houston-based workers on LinkedIn relocating from the Big Apple.
11. Denver, CO
Life in the mountains just seems better to a lot of former Texans. Denver wasn’t one of the top 10 cities for workers throughout the country, but it was the most popular place for people to move to when they left Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth.
12. Los Angeles, CA
The City of Angels wasn’t a top 10 worker hot spot, but it was a popular relocation destination for people in many areas around the country. Washington D.C., for example, saw its largest worker population losses to L.A.
Places Losing Workers
1. College Station-Bryan, Texas
Home to the main campus of Texas A&M University, College Station-Bryan is a smaller metro area of around 200,000 people. Despite its relatively small size, it was the most common region for workers to flee in 2023, according to LinkedIn’s data.
That could be partially due to new graduates moving away to find jobs. Many cities that lost workers are college towns or home to large campuses, though LinkedIn did not collect specific data about why people moved from one city to another.
2. Urbana-Champaign, IL
This small, central Illinois city is home to the University of Illinois. Many LinkedIn users left the region in 2023 to relocate to the big city. The most common place for Urbana-Champaign workers to move was Chicago, just a two-hour drive away.
3. Gainesville, FL
Not every city in Florida is drawing workers en masse. Gainesville, home to the University of Florida campus, lost the third-highest number of workers in 2023 out of all cities in the U.S.
4. Tallahassee, FL
Florida’s capital came in fourth place for the highest worker losses overall. It also has two major colleges, Florida State University and Florida A&M University.
5. Memphis, TN
While Nashville saw a worker boom, Memphis saw the opposite. The city, known for its influence on blues, soul, and rock n’ roll, lost the fifth-highest number of workers in the U.S. in the past year.
6. Boston, MA
Boston is the 12th most expensive city in the U.S., according to U.S. News & World Report. It might not be the cost that’s driving people away though. Pricey New York City was a top destination for former Bostonians, and the expensive San Francisco Bay Area also saw a significant increase in transplants from the city.
7. Chicago, IL
The Windy City lost the seventh-highest number of workers on LinkedIn’s list. While many people from elsewhere in Illinois moved to the city, Chicago residents left for other large metros like Dallas, Los Angeles, and New York City.
8. San Francisco Bay Area, CA
As the Bay Area’s skyrocketing cost of living makes it the sixth-most expensive city in the U.S., workers are saying goodbye to San Francisco and moving to other parts of the country. But they’re not exactly moving to cheap places — the number one destination for former Bay Area workers was New York City, for example.
9. Pittsburgh, PA
Workers left the Steel City at about the same rate as they did San Francisco. Many stayed in-state, however, opting to relocate elsewhere in Pennsylvania.
10. Washington, D.C.
All’s not well at the U.S. Capitol, where many workers fled from in 2023. Most left for sunnier places, like Los Angeles and Tampa Bay.
11. Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN
While the Twin Cities are seeing many workers flock in from around the Midwest, they’ve also lost a chunk of their workforce to cities in the South. Phoenix, Dallas, and Tampa Bay are drawing the most workers from the chilly, northern metro area.
12. Detroit, MI
The Motor City is a similarly popular destination for people within the Midwest, but it’s also losing a lot of workers to bigger cities. The most common scenario was for former Detroiters to relocate to Dallas, San Francisco, and New York City.
