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TEXAS – Chicago takes on Texas.
World Business Chicago, the public-private company that serves as the city’s economic development arm, said it ran a full-page ad on the Sunday Dallas Morning News urging companies to travel north because of the warm business climate and for the more liberal abortion and electoral laws – a blow to the restrictive legislation the Lone Star State has passed on both fronts in recent months.
What you need to know
- World Business Chicago ran an ad in the Dallas Morning News encouraging companies to leave Texas because of recently enacted abortion and electoral laws
- Texas is the fastest growing state in the country in terms of jobs and residents
- Some experts believe that guidelines like the ban on abortion could induce some companies to leave their Texas location and discourage others from ever moving here
- The digital nomad culture allows workers and companies to be less tied to one location, which could harm Texas
The ad also offers a fresh start in Chicago to anyone who disagrees with Texas law.
The ad quickly turned from a recruiting message to a political statement offering “a few more” reasons to come to Chicago, including “Everyone’s Right to Vote” and “Protecting Reproductive Rights” and “Science to Fight COVID-19.” “.
Texas is in the midst of multiple abortion and franchise political battles that have divided the nation. The state’s new abortion law, signed by Republican Governor Greg Abbott, prohibits abortions once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity, usually about six weeks and before many women know they are pregnant.
During the same session, Abbott signed an election revision bill adding further electoral restrictions after the Democrats protested for months against their efforts to weaken minority turnout and maintain the GOP’s eroding dominance.
And last month, Abbott banned government mandates on wearing masks and vaccines as the delta variant of COVID-19 soars across the country.
Dozens of companies are going public with their opposition to the new Texas law that bans abortion after roughly six weeks of gestation, a move that follows weeks of corporate debate about how to respond.
More than 50 companies signed a letter this week stating that the Texas ban on abortion threatens the health and economic stability of their workers and customers.
Companies like Yelp, Lyft, VICE Media Group, Ben & Jerry’s, and Reddit said Texas’s abortion law was against their corporate values.
“Restricting access to full reproductive care, including abortion, jeopardizes the health, independence and economic stability of our employees and customers,” she said in her letter.
“Simply put, it contradicts our values and is bad for business. It affects our ability to build diverse and inclusive workforce pipelines, recruit top talent across states, and protect the well-being of all who keep our business alive. “In and out.”
According to the coalition’s website, the companies that signed the letter represent more than 129,000 workers.
“The future of gender equality hangs in the balance and threatens our families, communities, businesses and the economy,” they added. “We are against policies that hinder people’s health, independence and ability to be fully successful in the workplace.”
Governor Abbott’s press secretary Renae Eze said in a statement, “Texas’s economy is booming. People and companies vote with their feet, and month after month, more than any other state in the country, they choose to relocate to Texas. Companies are moving to the Lone Star State at record speed and investing there because we have created a framework that allows free enterprise to flourish and hardworking Texans to flourish. “
Have these new laws put Texas brain drain?
Eze’s statement is backed up by numbers. Texas is booming by every metric.
The governor’s bureau for economic development and tourism said in September that there has been a “huge surge” in businesses since the pandemic broke out, with 237 relocation or expansion projects currently in the works.
Oracle moved its headquarters to Austin, Texas late last year. Tesla is also building its new Gigafactory there and Apple will host its second largest campus in the Texan capital. This influx of big tech has sparked discussions that Texas could potentially become a business hub rivaling Silicon Valley.
CBRE and Charles Schwab have moved their headquarters from California to the Dallas area in recent months, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise will head to Houston. Texas has also attracted wealthy individuals like Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale.
But it’s not just big corporations and the rich who are moving to Texas. In 2020, Texas added more residents than any other state. This is because California population and employment growth has slowed to a trickle.
This boom, some experts say, will soon be put to the test as the social pledges of some companies seem diametrically opposed to controversial new laws. Chicago’s aggressive business case can fuel a brain drain as businesses and educated employees look for places to live and work that match their values.
Trina Olson and Alfonso Wenker are the co-founders of Team Dynamics, a Minneapolis-based human resources company that helps companies change their culture. The duo also authored Hiring Revolution, a book of recommendations on how companies can diversify their hiring pools.
Olson said considerations such as a state’s reproductive laws and other sociopolitical factors can affect where businesses will locate.
“You won’t be competitive in a modern workforce if you don’t prepare people and families for success,” she said.
Salary differences between the sexes, the lack of advancement opportunities for people of color – especially women of color – and the lack of access to health services such as abortions all contribute to the shrinking recruitment pool.
“There is this kind of cascade of impact across generations and communities when you don’t invest in people from the start,” continued Olson.
The data suggests that diverse businesses are more successful as businesses are better able to use the perspective of people regardless of race or gender.
“We are all seeing data that show that women have left the labor force at a higher percentage than men for a number of reasons,” said Wenker. “What is happening is that the abortion ban in Texas is tightening the current conditions that women and trans workers keep saying, ‘You are less valuable, you are less valuable, or you are less important.’ At the same time, companies say: “We value the leadership role of women. We want to diversify our talent pool. We believe everyone should be accessible. ‘
“As a result, policy makers, the current environment and the way people are hired and managed keep sending mixed messages about who is valued and who deserves to be hired, well paid and promoted,” he continued. “I think the brain drain follows other movements that we’ve seen.”
Another factor that doesn’t bode well for the future of Texas is the recent spread of digital nomad culture – people not tied to one place to get their jobs done.
“COVID has only accelerated people’s understanding that work from anywhere is really possible when you have a digital job,” said Wenker. “So why in the world would you invest in a location that harms your workers?”
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