Unsurprisingly government jobs continue to dominate the core area accounting for a whopping 61.8% of jobs as of 2016. The state government alone accounts for 48.2% of the total jobs in the core area and this is projected to grow as the state makes massive investments in the downtown.
A 20-story building, the new state resources building, is projected to finish construction in 2021. An 11-story state office building at 1215 O St. projected to house several state social service agencies is also under construction. A 10-story building for relocated state Capitol offices is underway at a former parking lot at 10th and O streets.
The New State Resources Building Under Construction
Work is scheduled to begin on a new Sacramento County courthouse north of the federal courthouse downtown. Farther north, the state has broken ground on a new state office campus near Seventh Street and Richards Boulevard. Even with the revised 2020-21 California state budget which defunded a property on R street and multiple renovations for state office buildings, the state is projected to spend over $4 billion dollars before 2025.
The opening of Sutter hospital in 2015 and the continued expansion of its medical facilities has contributed to an increase in health services jobs. The sector saw an employment increase of 31.6% between 2010 and 2015.
According to the SACOG projections, the total employment within the DSP area is anticipated to expand by roughly 22,000 employees between 2012 and 2020, at a rate of 2.8 percent per year.
It will be interesting to watch the commuter patterns as new jobs from the state as well as the new housing comes online. The data indicates that the core area is a commuter destination and that a relatively small percentage of the workforce lives within the core area. SACOG estimates that of the 87,600 workers employed in the core area, 82,000 lived outside of it, representing a rate of in-commuting of 93.6 percent. By comparison, of the 15,600 employed residents that live in the core area, only around 5,600 also worked in it. This represents an out-commute rate of 64.1 percent.
The commuter patterns as well as the employment base in the core area indicates that housing developers have a substantial opportunity to capture housing demand from the core areas employment base.