Austin newcomers are seeing bigger pay jumps
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People moving to Austin are seeing a bigger jump in pay than those already here, per internal Bank of America data shared with Axios.
Why it matters: When workers switch jobs, they get a bigger jump in compensation than those who don't.
- In this year's third quarter, median wage growth was a shade above 10% year over year for people who moved to Austin and about 2.5% for people who were already here, per Bank of America.
By the numbers: As of November, the average annual salary in Austin is $68,400, per ZipRecruiter.
Zoom out: As of October 2023, median wage growth nationally was 6.6% year over year for job switchers and 5.3% for those who stayed in their jobs, per the Atlanta Fed.
- Some of the biggest gaps were in Seattle and San Francisco, where the spread ranged from 10 to 14 percentage points.
Between the lines: "The sharp rise in pay for these movers could be due to larger overall salaries in these large cities where the cost of living is also higher," according to the recent report from the Bank of America Institute, an internal bank think tank that uses proprietary data to understand the economy. "These cities also have a greater concentration of tech and financial services sectors, which are higher-paid industries."
What they're saying: "Cities that tend to be traditional hubs for finance or technology are at one end of the spectrum," Anna Zhou, an economist at the Bank of America Institute, tells Axios.
- "On the other end of the spectrum, Miami or Orlando" — where the spread is roughly 1 percentage point or less — "are places people are often going for retirement purposes."
Flashback: Austin saw the biggest net gain in remote workers of any major U.S. city during the pandemic.
- And counties across Central Texas saw the state's highest increases in income thanks to new migration between 2020 and 2021.
The big picture: Many people moving here already have a lot of money.
- We reported last year that the average Austin newcomer has a home-buying budget that's about 7.6% higher than locals' budgets.