New economic realities, post-recession regulations and technological changes are creating profit pressures on financial services firms. And, that’s leading to more jobs in Phoenix. 

Darin Mellot co-authored an industry study for commercial real-estate firm CBRE. It shows banks, insurance companies and other financial firms are moving more into non-traditional markets that offer good value.

“You can’t just have low costs,” he said. “You also need to be able to get the talent you need and when you look at it in those terms Phoenix is very cost effective.”

Phoenix’s lower labor and real-estate costs compared with cities like New York and Los Angeles are adding up to more jobs. Since 2010, the study found only Dallas-Fort Worth with 284,600 jobs has added more financial services jobs than Phoenix with 173,700.

The Valley is labeled as "strong" in shared services, which include jobs like accounting, legal services and human resources. The study listed Phoenix as  "moderate" for information-technology jobs like software and web developers, and "moderate" for risk and compliance workers, which include quantitative analysts, mathematicians and compliance officers.

“In Phoenix what you have is one of the largest cities in the country and a very large workforce,” Mellot said. “So the numbers really work in favor of Phoenix.”

He said the Valley’s sheer size is another plus, with enough space and workers for companies in the same sector to grow.