Atlanta has historically been one of the strongest job markets in the country, adding more than 1.2 million new positions over the last three decades. Perhaps even more compelling than its long run of employment expansion is the city’s accelerated post-pandemic recovery, as well as its broadening base of talent.

The deep but short-lived pandemic recession of 2020 resulted in 22 million job losses across the U.S. Today the country has recovered, having surpassed its pre-pandemic employment level - but it took 29 months to get there. Despite broadly positive gains, markets such as New York City, Los Angeles and Washington D.C. are still playing catch-up, each with overall employment today below their pre-pandemic peak. In contrast, markets with durable growth characteristics have recovered more quickly, including Atlanta, which surpassed its pre-pandemic employment peak over the course of just 20 months. Atlanta has added more than 500,000 jobs across a broad range of job sectors since the Covid recession ended in April of 2020.

For owners and occupiers of commercial real estate, analyzing sector-level job gains offers hints about future demand. Office space absorption remains correlated to employment growth within areas such as Information, Professional & Business Services and Financial. Despite headwinds from changing office occupier strategies and return-to-office trends, significant job gains in these sectors (a combined +61,000 year-over-year) provide strong support for office space demand. Employment within Transportation and Utilities is growing at twice the overall Atlanta rate, illustrating the continued need for workers within warehousing and supply chains. Identifying suitable labor to support industrial operations is a significant factor during site selection, and areas with plentiful talent pools score far more favorably.