Location Strategy Chartbook 06.06.2026

Metro job data is in today, & 29 of the 50 largest metros have gained jobs over the last year

Fastest: Las Vegas (2%), Raleigh (2%), Fresno (1.7%), SLC (1.3%), San Jose (1.3%)

Slowest: DC (-2.9%), Portland (-2.8%), OKC (-1%), Detroit (-.9%), Milwaukee (-.9%)

Non-farm Payrolls: +172k
Unemployment Rate: 4.3% (+0%)
Prime Age (25-54) Employment-Population Ratio: 80.8% (+0.1%)
Average Hourly Earnings: +0.3%

US tech sector employment is down 43k over the last year in data released this morning—that's nearly as bad as the worst of the 2024 tech-cession, and significantly worse than either the 2008 or 2020 recessions

In total, US public-sector jobs are down 187k over the last year thanks to a 270k drop in the federal workforce & a 42k drop at state public schools & universities, offset by a 35k increase at local public schools & a 92k increase at other local governments

Liz Ann Sonders, Schwab: Tech announced most job cuts since August 2024 according to latest Challenger Gray data

In May, job leavers as % of unemployed climbed to 12.5% vs. 11.3% in prior month

Wage growth for lower- and middle-income households is recovering but still lags higher-income earners, despite some narrowing in the gap. Lower- and middle-income after-tax wage growth rose to 3.1% and 3.5% year-over-year (YoY), respectively, in May, while higher-income wage growth eased to 5.6% YoY.

WSJ: The International Energy Agency, in a joint statement with other multilateral organizations, warned last week about the economic consequences of “rapid depletion of oil inventories ahead of peak summer oil demand.”
 
And the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development published downbeat scenarios for global growth this week if flows don’t normalize soon. It warned that, while Asia might be hardest hit, it also would “weaken growth significantly” in the U.S. and Western Europe.

Amazon has signed a lease for more than 1 million square feet of industrial space at Passport Park West 6, a new distribution building nearing completion close to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport.

Dallas-based developer Trammell Crow, a subsidiary of CBRE known for large-scale warehouse projects nationwide, owns the upcoming building at 2550 Travel St. in Dallas.

The deal stands out as one of the largest commitments in the Dallas-Fort Worth region this year and reflects continued demand for bulk distribution space near the airport. Amazon is expected to begin occupancy at the property in July, according to CoStar data.

Passport Park West 6 is part of a seven-building, master-planned industrial park. The cross-dock structure will offer 40-foot clear heights, 177 dock doors and trailer storage capacity of nearly 400 units.

Samsung Electronics America is relocating its HQ to Texas from New Jersey just eight months after moving into its new Garden State facility, reigniting criticism that the area's high corporate taxes and red tape are driving away businesses.

Samsung confirmed that it was exiting 700 Sylvan Ave. in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, where it leases roughly 270,000 square feet, according to CoStar data. The U.S. HQ will move to Samsung's existing campus in Plano, Texas, "building on our 30-year presence in the state," the company said in an email to CoStar News on Tuesday.

Samsung's announcement also comes as Central Texas has become its chipmaking base with an existing chip fabrication plant in Austin, Texas, which it has operated since 1996, as well as its advanced foundry in nearby Taylor. The foundry, once expected to cost $17 billion to build, is expected to open by year's end. Samsung's investment in the project has grown to $37 billion, according to media reports.

The Taylor facility is one of the largest semiconductor manufacturing projects underway in the United States. Last July, Samsung confirmed it has secured a $16.5 billion, multiyear contract with Tesla to manufacture its next-generation automotive chips at the plant.

New research led by experts at the World Resources Institute (WRI) and ECOnorthwest, with support from The Pew Charitable Trusts, shows that building homes near existing jobs, stores, and transit saves public dollars, in both up-front infrastructure and ongoing maintenance costs, and produces more revenue in property taxes per acre than local governments can expect from development at the edge of town.

New housing built near existing workplaces, retail, and transit entails lower infrastructure construction and maintenance costs because these new homes generally rely on roads and utility connections that are already in place. Housing built at the urban fringe, on the other hand, often requires new roads, sewer and water lines, and other public services.

This research used economic modeling to estimate the fiscal impact of new housing in 10 states of vastly different sizes and geography: Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington.

Key findings include:

• The up-front cost to government and taxpayers of building roads, water and sewer lines, and other public utilities to serve new homes near existing jobs, stores, and transit is approximately $21,000 lower per home than the infrastructure costs associated with building homes at the outer edge of cities and towns.

• The ongoing costs to government and taxpayers of maintaining roads and utilities that serve new homes are 50% lower, on average, when those homes are built near existing jobs, stores, and transit.

• Property taxes generated per acre are 13% higher, on average, when new homes are built near jobs, stores, and transit.

• On average, the payback period for infrastructure associated with new homes is 50% longer when those homes are built in outlying areas than when they are built near existing jobs, stores, and transit.

• Local government can keep property tax rates down while maintaining healthy balance sheets when more housing is built in established areas.

Bloomberg: Since 2018 the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area has attracted more corporate headquarters relocations than anywhere else in the US, according to real estate company CBRE Group Inc., with manufacturing and tech firms leading the way. The influx drew thousands of software engineers and other Indian-born workers to the federal H-1B program, which provides temporary visas for professionals with corporate sponsors. For the most recently available four-year period, ended Sept. 30, 2024, the government granted almost 32,000 new H-1B approvals in the Dallas area, topping Silicon Valley, Seattle, San Francisco and Washington, DC, and trailing only the New York City metro area.

Visa holders flocked to the new subdivisions spreading north through the suburbs of Prosper, Frisco and, most of all, Celina, where the population more than tripled in just five years. That helped make Collin and Denton the fastest-growing US counties among those with a population of at least 1 million, the most recent census data show. Collin also had the biggest percentage jump in Indian residents among large counties, climbing to an average of more than 116,000 in the five years through 2024, from 70,000 in the preceding five years.

But the momentum is quickly reversing. Indian buyers are disappearing from the market as federal and state governments tighten H-1B restrictions and many of the tech companies that employed the new arrivals fire workers in favor of artificial intelligence. Prices in the Collin County suburbs north of Dallas in February dropped almost 9% from a year earlier, compared with a decline of 4% in the metro area as a whole, according to data from brokerage Redfin.

Immigrant-heavy regions in the US — such as the suburbs of Northern Virginia; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Seattle — rely on these kinds of high-skilled temporary work visas for their high-tech workforces. South Asians have become the most important first-time buyer group for builders, says Alex Barron, an analyst at Housing Research Center LLC in El Paso, Texas. “Who is there to replace them?” he asks.

In Frisco alone, where 235,000 people live about 30 miles north of downtown Dallas, the Indian share of the population ballooned from 6% in the 2010-14 period to about 20% a decade later, second only to White residents, who are no longer in the majority, according to census data.

For almost a decade, South Asians have been the driving force behind this region’s building boom, one of the biggest in the US during the pandemic. They once accounted for 70% of sales at Schneider’s Tradition Homes. But in the past year they’ve dropped below 30%, leaving his family-owned company with a backlog of 125 luxury properties to sell.