Thursday, November 12, 2015 – This morning I attended the Northeast Relocation Roundtable breakfast and wanted to share some random factoids that could be helpful to my clients who recruit and relocate employees for their companies.
- The average cost of relocating an employee domestically is roughly $100,000 (executives can be multiples of that number) and internationally is approximately $378,000.
- Due to the steady rise in student loans, for the first time in history, college graduates in the 18-34 age range are buying fewer homes than their non-college graduate peers.
- 31% of 18-34 year olds still live with their parents.
- Due to modern technology (AKA electronic leashes) many of the traditional 9:00-5:00 jobs are slowly disappearing and being replaced by flex hours where workers can be accessed 24/7. Flexibility of schedule is often ranked as a higher priority to Millennials than salary, title or job duties!
- If you don’t think Millenials are diverse and radically different from past generations, consider these numbers: 68% have never been married; 32% of moms have always been single; 26 is the average age for first time parents (highest ever recorded in the US); 44% are non-white; 38% are bilingual; and they account for one in every five same sex couples.
- Renters are often treated as 2nd class citizens when a company is relocating them (vs home buyers), and this has to change as there are now more renters than buyers; it is often no less expensive to relocate as a renter than as a home owner. And, renters have the additional hurtle of trying to find a rental which is often a much tougher request in low vacancy cities (including Cleveland and Akron/Canton), especially if they are international transplants who have no credit history in the US, and they are only given 2-3 days budget to find a rental – almost impossible in some major US cities like San Francisco and New York.
- 71% of companies now have lump sum relocation policies; 22% grant exceptions to a policy on a case by case basis.
Thanks Tom Bruhn of Weichert Workforce Mobility for sharing great insights!