Boom Town
Pandemic changes in Austin bode well for students and faculty.
Austin was already a hot spot for business, but during the past two years — even amid a pandemic — it further enhanced its boomtown bona fides.
That bodes well for McCombs’ students, alumni, and faculty members eager to partner with local businesses. Janet Huang, senior assistant dean for career management and corporate relations, sees opportunities in the numbers.
“The Bay Area had plateaued as a talent pool, and they needed new hot spots for talent,” Huang says. “The talent here is attractive for many companies.”
Data from the Austin Chamber of Commerce show that between January and September 2021, 72 new companies set up shop in the Austin area, including headquarters for Super Coffee (a health-conscious bottled coffee) and F45 Training (a fitness training studio franchise). That compared with 49 in all of 2016. During the past five years, 314 companies called the Austin metro area their new home. And, 473 companies expanded in the area since 2016, with the largest yearly number — 93 — doing so in 2020.
Chamber records show that job postings for the Austin MSA reached record highs during summer 2021, peaking at 90,500 openings in September. Laura Huffman, chamber president and CEO, says 2020 was the area’s “best year when looking at job creation.”
“We were eighth best in the country despite the pandemic, and 2021 hasn’t seen any indications of a slowdown,” she says.
The area has proved its resilience, says Huang, as major companies such as Tesla and Oracle moved their California headquarters to Austin.
“You’ve got every industry represented in the heart of Texas,” she says. She aims to keeps the McCombs School well connected to small businesses, large companies, and major corporations. “The benefits for students will be more opportunities for them to network with and learn from companies coming here and more diversification of the opportunities that are here.”
While other regions focus on a specific industry, such as tech in the Bay Area, Huang says the Texas economy is diverse and includes the traditional oil and gas industries as well as renewable energy, tech, health care, and financial services. That means more companies view Austin as the right place to grow their businesses and the right place for investors to support startups.
Students need to be “market ready,” she says. But she also encourages alumni to seek help from the McCombs Alumni Career Management program, which launched in June. It provides resources for new and seasoned alumni, from webinars to one-on-one career coaching opportunities. “We provide career support for life,” Huang says.
Story by Sharon Jayson
If you want to learn more about supporting programs like this, contact Adam Loew, Development and External Relations, at adam.loew@mccombs.utexas.edu.
