South Carolina, Missouri and Washington, DC, are pulling in young adults while California, New Jersey and Illinois lose them. HR leaders on both sides of that ledger have work to do
If more of your early-career applicants are listing an out-of-state address, you are not imagining it.
A new analysis of Census Bureau microdata by LendingTree has found that South Carolina gained more adults aged 18 to 27 through interstate moves in 2024 than any other state: a net 22,843. California is the big loser here, sitting at the other end of the table, having lost a net 58,109 young adults, the biggest drain in the country by a wide margin.
For employers, those state-by-state flows may be more useful than the study's eye-catching headline. LendingTree estimates that 23.9% of Gen Z adults, or 10.7 million people, moved to another state or DC during the year, far ahead of millennials (14%), Gen Xers (7.2%) and baby boomers (5.2%). The gap between generations is unsurprising, but the scale is hard to square with the Census Bureau's own 2024 state-to-state migration flows, which put interstate movers of all ages at roughly 7.2 million, about 2.1% of the population, according to a USAFacts analysis. HR teams may want to read the lending tree "1 in 4" figure as a signal of direction rather than scale.
Who is gaining young talent
South Carolina drew an estimated 60,223 Gen Z adults from other states and lost 37,380. Missouri (net 14,063), DC (13,905), Tennessee (13,537), Arizona (12,593), Washington (11,781) and Texas (10,720) also added at least 10,000 young adults each.
Scale changes the picture. Measured against its existing Gen Z adult population, DC's net gain amounted to 12.3%, more than double any state. North Dakota (5.4%) and Vermont (3.8%) came next, which suggests that smaller labor markets can punch well above their weight in attracting young workers.
Who is losing it
California still attracted 128,718 Gen Z adults in 2024, second only to Texas. But 186,827 left, by far the most of any state. The single busiest exit route ran to Texas: about 19,287 young Californians made that move, while 13,362 went the other way.
New Jersey (net loss of 37,556) and Illinois (20,031) followed. As a share of its young adult population, Alaska took the hardest hit, shrinking by 6.3%.
Matt Schulz, LendingTree's chief consumer finance analyst, told Fox Business he believed that "affordability was driving at least part of this." Education is another factor: 38.1% of the Gen Zers who crossed a state line were enrolled in college at the time of the survey, meaning many of these moves are to campuses rather than to jobs.
What it means for HR
In gaining states, the pool is deeper but the ladder is shorter. A larger supply of young adults only helps if there are roles for them. Entry-level hiring has tightened, with nearly half of hiring managers saying they would rather invest in AI tools than hire and train a new graduate. Employers in South Carolina, Tennessee or Arizona that keep junior roles open may face less competition for young talent than their peers on the coasts.
In losing states, location flexibility is the lever. Workers who leave a high-cost state do not always want to leave their employer. Yet entry-level roles are the least likely to offer location flexibility, which forces a choice between the job and the move. A hybrid or hub-based option for early-career staff could keep some of that talent on the payroll. Relocation support can work in the other direction too: Google, for one, offered some staff a one-time paid relocation to live within 50 miles of an office as it moved teams to hybrid schedules.
Every move is a compliance event. When an employee relocates, state income tax withholding, wage-and-hour rules, paid leave entitlements and health plan networks can all change. Unemployment insurance can shift as well: the Department of Labor's four-factor localization-of-work test generally assigns it to the single state where the employee's work is performed, as employment law firm Ogletree Deakins explains. A simple policy requiring staff to notify HR before a move, not after, avoids retroactive payroll corrections and gaps in coverage.
Mobility is not disloyalty. It is tempting to read a geographically restless generation as a flight risk. The data is less dramatic: research from the National Institute on Retirement Security found that younger workers stay in jobs about as long as older generations did at the same age. NIRS executive director Dan Doonan argued in a statement on the researchthat "the real drivers of turnover are the economy, benefits, and job opportunities."
For HR, that may be the most useful takeaway. Young adults are voting with their moving trucks on cost of living and opportunity. Employers that understand where that traffic is heading, and make it easy for good people to move without quitting, stand to benefit most.
Note: the LendingTree data covers moves in 2024, the most recent year available. Migration patterns may have shifted since.
