Portland has a problem. And, in many ways, it's not a bad one. According to New York Times Magazine, the Pacific Coast city has attracted — and retained — college-educated young people at the second highest rate in the nation. So now what?
While a number of recent college grads relocate to cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles or New York for the bustling economies and job opportunities, another group of Millennials is moving to Portland to, well, move to Portland. Though the area is home to some outdoor sports apparel businesses such as Nike and Columbia Sportswear, Portland isn't really a destination for the burgeoning tech industry that most Millennials want to get a piece of. The fact remains, though, that a number of these young Portlandians are without jobs.
The good news: the tech industry is providing ways for college-educated workers to have their cake and eat it, too. Companies that are open to the possibility of a remote workforce will be able to cast a much wider net when recruiting talent. Most Millennials cite workplace flexibility as a top priority at their current (or prospective) place of employment. Flexibility can be defined in many different ways, but for swarms of educated young people who want a big city job with a smaller city life, remote work is where it's at. And, it seems, where it's really at is in Portland.
