NEWS

Detroit a top job market for millennials, LinkedIn says

Brian Manzullo
Detroit Free Press
The Renaissance Center, headquarters of General Motors.

Detroit isn't quite there yet as a top destination city for millennials.

But when it comes to millennials seeking jobs, Michigan's largest city is in high demand.

At least that's according to a LinkedIn study conducted by writer Rachel Bowley, who researched and found five "surprising cities rapidly attracting millennial job-seekers." Detroit is on the list, along with Austin, Texas; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; Cleveland/Akron, Ohio; and Charlotte, N.C., as the cities with the highest annual growth in job interest among millennials.

Though larger cities such as New York City, Washington and Los Angeles still seem to attract the most millennials, it's actually mid-size cities that are growing most rapidly among our youngest generation of adults, Bowley said.

"Over the past year, interest in mid-size cities among millennials has grown 25 percent faster than in large cities," Bowley wrote.

Not that any of this should come as a surprise, but LinkedIn finds that the most popular Detroit industries are automotive, IT and services, and marketing and advertising. The most popular companies: General Motors, Ford and Quicken Loans.

LinkedIn lists about 39,700 job openings in the Greater Detroit Area.

"While these cities are seeing the biggest spike in job seeking among millennials, these aren’t the top cities where millennials have been moving to... yet," Bowley wrote. "Over the past year we’ve seen the millennial population grow most rapidly in Seattle, Portland and Denver. Notably, these Pacific Northwest cities have also seen the biggest increase in housing prices across the U.S, which may be why we’re seeing millennials favor these other cities now."

Read more about the methodology of this study here.

Contact Brian Manzullo: bmanzullo@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @BrianManzullo.