City lacks a reputation

Pittsburgh is a city trying to build its reputation.

Allegheny County has one of the… Pittsburgh is a city trying to build its reputation.

Allegheny County has one of the largest senior citizen populations in the country, and Pittsburgh has lost almost 140,000 people since 1980. It remains one of the oldest cities in America, but not because it was founded in 1758.

Pittsburgh doesn’t have a poor job market or a bad reputation. It has no reputation as a place for young professionals to work, live and play comfortably.

On one side is Davie Huddleston of PNC Financial Services Group Inc. He said “the majority of our new hires are from outside of the region,” and that PNC likes to “find diversity” when hiring.

On the other side is Erin Molchany, executive director of Pittsburgh Urban Magnet Project, who tries to encourage young professionals to come and thrive in the city.

Both sides can agree that Pittsburgh isn’t a hotspot for young professionals. They disagree about whether or not that’s a bad thing.

“With the numbers of elderly citizens increasing, and if younger workers leave, the available workforce for employers will become strained,” Marvin Roth, director of Pitt’s Career Services, said. “If the region is to see any sustained economic growth, we must be able to retain a skilled workforce.”

According to a survey conducted by Pitt’s Career Services last year, only 45 percent of the 2,125 respondents indicated they were staying in Western Pennsylvania after graduation.

Chris Briem offered a different perspective on what can be interpreted as a negative statistic.

“The city doesn’t really have a problem with retaining its young people. It does not do a good job of attracting people from elsewhere,” Briem, of Pitt’s Center for Social and Urban Research, said. “It’s an important distinction, and it comes from the same fact that we are a large college town.”

More than 71,000 people between the ages of 15 and 24 were employed in Pittsburgh in 1980. That number dropped to slightly more than 41,000 in 2000, which shows that Pittsburgh has had a hard time retaining young people for several consecutive decades.

“We have a large number of students who live in this area and would like to stay for employment,” Roth said. “However, we have a larger number of students who are from this area and would like to seek employment somewhere else.”

More than 84 percent of Pitt’s undergraduate population is from Pennsylvania, and approximately 20 percent of that population is from Allegheny County. Although Pittsburgh’s mean annual income is $3,250 less than Cleveland’s, and $6,190 less than Philadelphia’s, some local companies don’t mind Pittsburgh’s perception and lack of reputation. They don’t have to look very far for new employees.

Kevin Lowery, vice president of corporate communications for Alcoa Inc., said his company, which is “as global as global gets,” understands the benefits of recruiting locally.

“We have several thousand employees Downtown, many of whom come from the region of Western Pa.,” Lowery said. “There are plenty of opportunities here in Pittsburgh for young people. And a company doesn’t like to have to pay to relocate a new hire, so it’s always a plus to find homegrown employees.”

Regardless, Pittsburgh’s smaller mean annual income most likely contributes to its “brain drain,” as Roth calls it. While Roth is quick to assume there is a brain drain in the city, Briem is even quicker to debunk that assumption.

“Once you think about the city as a large college town, which it is in many ways, you get a very different perspective,” Briem said. “If you look closely at the young working age population you get another perspective. If you look just at those 25- to 34-year-olds, the population of the city and region has a high level of educational attainment. So in that sense, we do keep a large number of graduates here.”

While some people are content with Pittsburgh’s non-status as a hotspot for young professionals, others definitely aren’t.

The Pittsburgh Urban Magnet Project is one of those organizations trying to elevate the city’s reputation.

P.U.M.P. is the “voice of youth in the region,” a group that exists to attract and mobilize young people and to teach them about the benefits of living in Pittsburgh, according to Molchany.

“We give people access to decision makers and keep them involved in local politics and issues,” she said. “We try to show people what Pittsburgh has to offer.”

Molchany’s organization has several programs intended to mobilize and attract young professionals to Pittsburgh, including its Discover Pittsburgh 2007 event that provides a chance for members to “meet representatives from Pittsburgh’s business, cultural, recreational, and educational communities,” according to P.U.M.P’s Web site.

Roth also noted that Career Services attempts to aid students by holding annual job and internship fairs, a time when many local companies send representatives to campus.

Even if Pittsburgh doesn’t have much of a reputation among young professionals, the city’s pulse is much stronger than it was decades ago, according to Briem.

“It’s true that there was a period not too long ago where the local economy was doing so bad that young college graduates were almost forced to leave town to begin their careers. However, people also probably infer that current trends are similar to what they were in the past, which simply isn’t true.”

The idea that Pittsburgh isn’t hip for young professionals doesn’t damage the city on a large scale. Companies will always need to recruit young professionals regardless of location and, as Briem said, “enough for everyone to keep the economy moving.”

“Pittsburgh is an excellent place to start, end or maintain a career. I’ve lived all over the country, and Pittsburgh has it all,” Huddleston said. “We’ve got to elevate Pittsburgh as a place to work, live and play comfortably.”