What Is the Talent Pipeline Like in the City of Phoenix

Arizona State University's Downtown Phoenix campus enrolled 10,800 students in fall 2026, part of ASU's overall 203,700+ student body for 2025-26 — a dense, in-city talent feeder within walking distance of downtown employers.

The 10-college Maricopa Community Colleges system (including Phoenix College, South Mountain, and GateWay, all inside the City of Phoenix) serves more than 140,000 students annually and posted its 12th consecutive semester of enrollment gains heading into fall 2025.

GateWay Community College, located in the Phoenix Bioscience Core, hosted Arizona's first Technology Support Specialist apprenticeship under the national CompTIA Apprenticeships for Tech initiative with ARIZONA@WORK, the same year Arizona's tech sector added 2,500+ net new jobs and employers posted 108,000+ IT openings.

Phoenix's civilian labor force totaled 863,731 workers with a 68% labor-force participation rate (vs. 60% statewide and 63% nationally), and total city employment grew from 1,013,840 (2021) to 1,095,437 (2023), a 3.9% annualized rate.

The City of Phoenix reached an estimated population of 1,673,164 as of July 1, 2024 (U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2024 estimate), making it the nation's fifth-largest city and the core of a rapidly expanding regional labor pool.