CUED
Center
for Urban Economic Development
University of Illinois at Chicago
Locational and Human Resource
Requirements for
Chicago's Financial Service Firms
Project Number: 336
Report Date: September 1990
Author(s): Wendy Wintermute
Chicago is home to a large, growing and diverse financial services sector. Over 7,000 firms employ 165,000 workers in finance, insurance, securities and commodities, and real estate. However, Chicago's current strength as a regional, national, and international finance capital cannot be taken for granted. Chicago's financial service firms are operating in an environment characterized by increasing and increasingly international competition, rapid changes in technology, significant shifts in occupational structures and skills required by workers, and pivotal changes in the regulatory environment.
One result attributed to these changes has been the relocation of routine, computer dependent jobs -- operations and support functions -- from the headquarters to more remote locations in the United States or even abroad. Since operations and support functions account for 15 to 33 percent of Chicago's financial service sector employment, and an even larger proportion of entry-level opportunities, the Economic Development Commission of the City of Chicago convened an Operations and Support Industry Council charged with developing a plan to ensure that Chicago remains the location of choice for the operations and support functions of its financial service firms.
In order to provide background information to the Industry Council, the University of Illinois at Chicago's Center for Urban Economic Development undertook an analysis of the locational and human resource needs of Chicago's major financial services firms. The analysis included a survey of 65 firms and in-depth interviews with 10 firms. The preliminary results of that analysis are presented in this report.
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