News Articles
Resource Articles
Use the following articles or quotes in your recruitment packages, in presentations or as research on the latest recruitment trends. In some cases, reprints are available by request.
LOCAL
Kansas City Business Journal || April 2008
KC merits a good grade in brainpower study
Educational achievement factors in local economy
A recent study shows brains play a large role in the brawn of the Kansas City economy.
Kansas City ranks as the 25th smartest metro area in a study by Bizjournals.com, an affiliate of the Kansas City Business Journal. The study ranked the 100 largest metro areas based on the academic achievement of adult residents.
The Bizjournals study focused on adults ages 25 to 64, compiling data from the U.S. Census Bureau 's American Community Survey, which was conducted in 2006 and released late last year. The study assigned a point value to various categories of educational attainment, then ranked metro areas based on the average for adult residents.
Madison, Wis., was at the head of the class, with 17 percent of adult residents having a graduate or professional degree and 28.1 percent who stopped at a bachelor's degree, compared with Kansas City's 11.2 percent and 22.5 percent, respectively.
Kansas City Star || April 2008
KC listens to ‘creative class’
The national development game is as much about attracting talent as brick-and-mortar projects these days, particularly the desirable young adult demographic dubbed the “creative class.”
That’s why the Kansas City Area Development Corp. has launched what it calls its KC 2.0 program. It’s a multimedia marketing plan aimed at helping local corporations recruit and retain that coveted 25- to 34-year-old age group.
Six years ago, the KCADC brought in Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class, to discuss his theory that talented young adults choose a place to live first and then seek a job.
Last year, the agency hired consulting firms Impresa Inc. and Coletta & Co. to further refine how the metro area shaped up for that key group.
Kansas City Business Journal || April 2008
More education boosts economic strength of nation's metros
College graduates and post-graduates are important to a city's economic vitality. The reason is as simple as their paychecks.
A recent federal report proves the point. It shows that a worker holding a doctorate will earn 70 percent more, on average, than a colleague with a bachelor's degree and 215 percent more than someone who never progressed beyond high school.
And the gap widens every year, increasing the importance of higher education and brainpower. Workers who don't keep pace are destined to pay the price.
"The decline of labor unions and a decline in the minimum wage in constant dollars have contributed to a relative drop in the wages of less educated workers," warns a separate analysis by the Census Bureau.
But cities with educated workforces have a brighter economic future.
See the 100 top brainpower metros
Kansas City Business Journal || August 2007
Angling for talent: Retirement boom cast cities into competition to lure workers
Talent is rising to the top of the equation for corporate success, so businesses are looking for communities with an ability to help them attract that top talent.
That's why KCADC launched an initiative called KC 2.0.
Kansas City companies are busy trying to sell their businesses to potential employees. KCADC will help companies sell the metropolitan area as a great place to live and work.
"There is, particularly in the younger generation, a tendency to just go to a market because it's cool and hip and then get a job when they get there," said Jonathan Knecht, KCADC's vice president of marketing and creative services. "It's totally counter to the approach of earlier generations, where they would follow a job opportunity around the country and take their family with them."
NATIONAL
Fortune || May 28, 2007
Nearly every businessperson over 30 has done it: sat in his office after a staff meeting and - reflecting upon the 25-year-old colleague with two tattoos, a piercing, no watch and a shameless propensity for chatting up the boss - wondered, What is with that guy?!
We all know the type: He's a sartorial Ryan Seacrest, a developmental Ferris Bueller, a professional Carlton Banks. (Not up on twentysomethings' media icons? That's the "American Idol" host, the truant Matthew Broderick movie hero, and the overeager Will Smith sidekick in "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.")
At once a hipster and a climber, he is all nonchalance and expectation. He is new, he is annoying, and he and his female counterparts are invading corporate offices across America.
Advertising Age || July 9, 2007
Meet the Millennials, the 83 million Americans born between 1977 and 1996. They are the largest generation in American history and, because of their size and profile, and with historic trends on their side, the Millennials are poised to take over the media and marketing world.
“The Millennials represent something we haven’t seen in a long time,” says Jack MacKenzie, president, Millennial Strategy Program, for leading researcher Frank N. Magid Associates. “It has been 40 years since a dominant generation came of age in American society— the baby boomers.”
The New York Times || Nov. 25, 2006
Some cities will do anything they can think of to keep young people from fleeing to a hipper town. In Lansing, Mich., partiers can ease from bar to bar on the new Entertainment Express trolley, part of the state’s Cool Cities Initiative. In Portland, Ore., employees at an advertising firm can watch indie rock concerts at lunch and play “bump,” an abbreviated form of basketball, every afternoon.
And in Memphis, employers pay for recruits to be matched with hip young professionals in a sort of corporate Big Brothers program. A new biosciences research park is under construction — not in the suburbs, but downtown, just blocks from the nightlife of Beale Street.
These measures reflect a hard demographic reality: Baby boomers are retiring and the number of young adults is declining. By 2012, the work force will be losing more than two workers for every one it gains.
Phone 816.221.2121 || Fax 816.842.2865 || Toll Free 800.99KCADC || www.thinkkc.com
KC 2.0 program inquiries: Roxanne Elliott || All other inquiries: kcadc@thinkkc.com
© Kansas City Area Development Council