Alliance-Bernstein notwithstanding, New York is not close to losing its hegemony over finance. With 472,000 employees in that industry, the city dwarfs all its competitors, including runner-up Chicago, where finance employs 264,000. Finance jobs in New York, according to Pepperdine University’s Michael Shires, have grown at a respectable 11 percent since 2009, though the pace has slowed more recently, last year increasing by only 1.6 percent. New York might be losing ground and market share, but the industry as a whole is not shrinking, at least for now. And New York’s traditional rivals in this sector—Chicago, Boston, and Los Angeles—have been struggling. Since 2009, Chicago’s financial job growth has been barely 5 percent, less than half of New York’s. Los Angeles, home to the fourth-largest agglomeration of finance workers, also did poorly, while Boston did even worse, actually losing finance jobs last year.
The big winners—as Alliance-Bernstein’s move demonstrated—have been overwhelmingly in the low-cost, low-density Sunbelt. With reasonable taxes, more affordable home prices, and expanding residential populations, these areas are becoming financial-industry giants, even if they lack large, locally based companies. Among the global financial firms relocating operations to these less costly locales are UBS, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs.
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