Finance dominates in Wilmington — but its not the biggest sector by employment 

Delaware is sometimes known as the state of the three C’s: chemicals, credit cards and chicken.

These days, one of those industries, more accurately classified as finance and insurance (including credit cards), dominates the labor market in the city of Wilmington. Wilmington’s “labor quotient,” or LQ of 5.71 in the sector means the finance and insurance industry is nearly six times more concentrated in the region than in the rest of the country. 

The next highest of the cities Technical.ly analyzed, Chicago, is only 2.12.

Credit cards are still a big part of it, with big corporations like JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and Bank of America all having a strong presence in Wilmington, as well as growing local companies like Best Egg. The finance and insurance category includes jobs like fintech founders, bank tellers, accountants and insurance agents.

This legacy goes back to Governor Pete du Pont, who established the Financial Center Development Act in 1981, which granted banks doing business in the state interest rate flexibility, among other perks. With that, Delaware became the place you mailed your credit card payment to, and it still largely is, though in a more digital sense.

The legal industry employs the greatest number of residents in the Wilmington region, twice as concentrated compared to the rest of the country. It makes sense: With so many companies incorporated in Delaware, the state need a lot of local lawyers.

When it comes to the concentration of tech jobs only, Wilmington has a little more than twice as many jobs in computer and mathematical than the rest of the country. Many of those jobs are in the finance sector. 

This stat reflects a trend that’s been going on since the mid-2010s. Dominating finance corporations like JPMorgan Chase got serious about building a tech talent pool in Delaware as their need — and the needs of other financial institutions in the state — for technologists grew. 

It was around that time that banks like Chase, Bank of America and Capital One were declared to be tech companies.

Despite a strong finance and insurance presence, Wilmington is seeing a downtrend in overall employment. The number of employed residents decreased by 10% in the last five years. 

This tracks with the trend of retirees moving to Delaware for its low taxes, including no sales tax and no personal property taxes, as well as proximity to beaches and the countryside.

Delaware’s population growth from 2019 to 2023 gives a closer look at the story. The number of people over 65 years old has grown by 17%, while the number of people considered working age, or 25 to 64 years old, grew by just 2.8%. 

It’s not just the beach region seeing growth in retired-age residents, either. New Castle County alone saw a 14.1% increase in residents over 65 during that time period, with just under a 1% increase in working-age residents. 

When you take into account the growth rate of college-age residents — 8% statewide and 7% in New Castle County — it appears that the trend could be related to large numbers of college students leaving the state when they hit working age. When that’s factored in with retirees moving in, there are lower rates of labor participation.

For those who live and work in Wilmington, the median salary rate is $106,000 annually, higher than most of the regions that Technical.ly covers. 

While the highest-paid cities on the list have a significantly higher median, the cost of living in Wilmington is low enough to make up for it. It’s cheaper than DC and Boston, with costs of living 41% and 43% higher than Wilmington, respectively, according to NerdWallet. 

While big finance is a major job sector in the state, fintech, as in startups like Best Egg and Nester, is making an impact, too.

With the opening of the FinTech Innovation Hub on the University of Delaware’s STAR campus, we may see the nontraditional banking fintech industry grow, hopefully retaining college graduates in the state — and drawing in more working-age professionals.