The current unemployment rate is at a 17-year low and with employers expecting to hire 4 percent more college graduates from the Class of 2018 than from the previous 2017 graduating cohort, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released it’s in-depth report on 2018’s Best Places to Find a Job.
One of the encouraging results for Arizona is that of the 182 cities examined there were four Arizona Cities ; Chandler, Scottsdale, Peoria and Gilbert that held the four of the top five positions in the analysis. Unfortunately the only Arizona city to be ranked in the bottom 100 was Tucson while the others Tempe. Phoenix and Mesa were in the top 100.
To determine the strongest local job markets in the U.S., WalletHub compared more than 180 cities across 26 key metrics. The data set ranges from job opportunities to employment growth to monthly average starting salary.
| Best Cities for Jobs | Worst Cities for Jobs | |||
| 1 | Chandler, AZ | 173 | Mobile, AL | |
| 2 | Scottsdale, AZ | 174 | Montgomery, AL | |
| 3 | San Francisco, CA | 175 | Fresno, CA | |
| 4 | Peoria, AZ | 176 | Hialeah, FL | |
| 5 | Gilbert, AZ | 177 | New Orleans, LA | |
| 6 | Plano, TX | 178 | Birmingham, AL | |
| 7 | Portland, ME | 179 | Columbus, GA | |
| 8 | Irvine, CA | 180 | Newark, NJ | |
| 9 | Madison, WI | 181 | Detroit, MI | |
| 10 | Boston, MA | 182 | Shreveport, LA | |
To view the WalletHub’s full report and your city’s rank, you can visit WalletHub.
More Best vs. Worst
- Columbia, Maryland has the highest median annual household income (adjusted by cost of living), $89,013, which is 3.4 times higher than in Hialeah, Florida, the city with the lowest at $26,352.
- San Jose, California has the highest monthly average starting salary (adjusted by cost of living), $5,441, which is 3.1 times higher than in Brownsville, Texas, the city with the lowest at $1,778.
- South Burlington, Vermont, the city with the lowest unemployment rate, 2.1 percent, which is 5.2 times lower than in Detroit, the city with the highest at 10.9 percent.
- Plano, Texas, the city with the fewest number of part-time employees for every 100 full-time employees, 37.63, which is 3.6 times fewer than in Burlington, Vermont, the city with the most at 134.34.
- South Burlington, Vermont is the city with the lowest share of workers living in poverty, 1.90 percent, which is 10.1 times lower than in Tallahassee, Florida, the city with the highest at 19.28 percent.