Chicago
Chicago
Growing Companies Choose Chicago
With a long history of welcoming innovators and a large cluster of Fortune 500 company HQs, Chicago has more recently attracted a number of fintech, consumer and big data startups that are finding their growth in the Windy City. With plenty of museums, music, and food to keep residents entertained.
Amazon
Uber
Salesforce
Boeing
Glassdoor
Top Companies have thousands of employees in Chicago
#3 tech talent momentum market measuring the growth acceleration of tech labor pools1
2nd largest HQ cluster in the U.S.
$2.2B VC Funding in 2019
“Since 2013, bay area-based companies have leased two million square feet of office space in Chicago”
—The Business Journals
:Talent
With the surge in jobs, population in the urban core has jumped 50% since 2000, double the national growth rate. Half of those people are under 35. Plus, the Chicago workforce has the most college grads per capita of the five largest U.S. cities
Since 2013, Chicago’s tech talent pool has grown 10.5%, or by about 167K workers8
Chicago is the 6th largest tech market in the country8
34% of population have Bachelor’s degree or higher with growing demand for highly-skilled workers11
#3 Tech Talent Momentum Market
—CBRE
:Cost
Although one of the largest and most influential cities in the U.S., Chicago is affordable by comparison to other large cities.
Chicago keeps income taxes simple: Illinois has a flat income tax of 4.95%10
If the Chicago region were a country, it would be the world’s 20th largest economy11
Consistently out-performed US average on productivity11
One of the Most Influential Cities in the U.S.
—SmartAsset
:Quality of Life
An Unrivaled Value
—World Business Chicago
:Connection
Chicago’s long history as a connective city remains a notable strength both in location and infrastructure.
Nonstop destinations9
See full list at nsflight.com
1400 daily departures from Chicago airports12
Ranked 7th best Urban transportation system globally12
:Strategic Sectors
Advanced Manufacturing13
- Manufacturing is among the region’s largest and most prominent sectors
- Manufacturing represents 53.9B GRP with a projected growth rate of 3.3%
- Subsectors include Metalworking Machinery, Chemicals and Advanced Materials, and Medical Device & Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
Technology
- First US Exascale super-computer at Argonne Laboratory in 2021
- 1871 is the #1 tech incubator in the world.
- In 2016, Illinois companies invested $1.1B in computer and electronic products R&D, and $823M in IT & Software R&D
- #14 Global Startup Ecosystem (Startup Genome)
Logistics/ Transportation
- Chicago has a full suite of transportation, distribution, and logistics companies
- Over 14,593 TDL firms—the highest number in the US, including 24 of top 25 third party logistics providers.
- #3 largest intermodal system globally, 200M consumers within 500-mile radius
- Chicago is nation’s rail hub
Food Industry
- 1.2K food manufacturing companies and over 55K employees—top in US
- 72K of the nation’s top farms cover nearly 76% of Illinois’ land area
- The largest food and beverage manufacturing economy by output at $7.2B
- Illinois’ $180B processed food sales ranks #1 in US
Life Sciences
- #1 city for Bioengineers & Biomedical engineers
- Ranks in the top 10 nationally for employment of chemists (#6), life scientists (#10), medical scientists (#9), microbiologists (#8), and biochemists (#10)
- Chicago MSA has the 3rd largest medical/life science industry
:Growing companies choose Chicago
Chicago’s economy is built on a diverse mix of industries and strategic focus. Recent investment in the region includes:
Glassdoor
132K ft2 and 1,000 employees
263,000 ft2 and 2,000 employees
Salesforce
500k ft2 and 2,000 employees
BlueCrew
Moved HQ from SF and hiring 250 employees
Uber
450,000 ft2, 2,000 jobs, and $200M invested
GrubHub
HQ in Chicago and 2,000 employees
Orbitz
Qualtrics
25,000 ft2 and 200 jobs
Amazon
70,000 ft2 and 400 tech jobs
G2
66,000 ft2 and 500 new hires
The only American inland metro area with a global footprint11
Chicago houses 50+ large corporate headquarters11
Sources
1 2020 Scoring Tech Talent, cbre.us; 2 C2ER, coli.org; 3 Cushman and Wakefield Chicago Office MarketBeat Report Q2 2020; 4 Cushman and Wakefield Chicago Industrial MarketBeat Report Q2 2020; 5 Zillow.com; 6 Statisticalatlas.com; 7 FRED Economic Data, fred.stlouisfed.org; 8 The Business Journals, bizjournals.com; 9 nsflights.com; 10 SmartAsset, smartasset.com; 11 World Business Chicago A Plan for Economic Growth and Jobs, chicago.gov; 12 World Business Chicago, worldbusinesschicago.com;
