At 4.1%, the US unemployment rate is at its lowest level in two decades. Still, as underemployment and stagnant wages erode consumers' buying power, an employee's ability to score a well-paying job today depends in part on their willingness to relocate.
To help those on the job market find the cities best for them, Adobo analyzed the data and create easy-to-read guides to the career opportunities available in each of the country's top 50 metro areas.
Unsurprisingly, the field seeing the the fastest growth between 2012 and 2015 is computer and mathematical occupations, which have grown by more than 20% over the past four years. In a relatively distant second place, community and social service occupations have grown by 15.3%, followed more closely by business and financial operations occupations (13.4%) and construction and extraction occupations (13.2%). The fifth fastest-growing field involves health care practitioner and technical occupations, which grew 12.3%.
First, Adobo breaks down how many jobs per 1,000 jobs exist in each category in each of the top 50 metros...
Our nation’s capital tops the list for business and financial operations, with a solid 98.9 jobs in the field per every 1,000 - the highest density of any occupation in any of the top 25 MSAs. Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO (79.5) and San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA (78.5) also posted solid numbers.
For the fastest-growing occupation - computers and math - Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV, offers the highest job density, with nearly 73 out of every 1,000 jobs being in the field. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA - recently named the country’s second-best tech city - has 67 job in the field per 1,000. Somewhat surprisingly, Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA, scored the lowest of the top 25 MSAs, with only 11 jobs in tech for every 1,000 jobs in the area.
Tech-heavy jobs include everything from software and web developers, support specialists, systems analysts, network administrators, and programmers, to statisticians, mathematicians, and computer research scientists. They've been growing at an unsurpassed rate since 2012, at an average of 4.8% a year - which would be higher if not for a stumble between 2014 and 2015, when the sector’s employment grew only 1.5%. The year before, employment grew an incredible 8.1%.
Unsurprisingly, San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara CA - the metro area that includes the San Francisco Bay area - leads with tech jobs, blowing nearly every other city out of the water.
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Social workers, counselors, religious workers, probation officers, therapists, and community health workers comprise this universally important job category, which means that these workers aren’t concentrated in metros. Since these jobs are everywhere, many areas are on par with the national average, leading to lower overall location quotients.
In terms of jobs per 1,000 for the top 25 metro areas, Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD, topped the list. But now that we’re looking at location quotient for the the top 50 metro areas, the Philadelphia area drops to #3, with about 1.4 times more jobs than the national average.
Instead, Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT, rises to the top, with 23.3 jobs in the field per every 1,000 and a location quotient of 1.6. Providence-Warwick, RI-MA, comes in second place with about 1.5 times more jobs than the national average concentration. Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH, and Buffalo-Cheektowaga-Niagara Falls, NY, both have a location quotient of 1.3.
* * *
Much like community and social service workers, business and financial operations - a group that includes accountants, real estate assessors, auditors, financial analysts, human resource specialists, claims adjusters, loan officers, logisticians, training and development specialists, event planners and similar employees - are scattered around the country, meaning the location quotients are fairly low.
As we mentioned earlier, our nation's capital has nearly double the national average concentration of business and financial jobs, with a 1.9 location quotient. Sacramento–Roseville–Arden-Arcade, CA; Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO; and San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA, all have location quotients around 1.5.
* * *
When it comes to construction and extraction jobs, this broad category largely includes jobs that are necessary everywhere, such as electricians, floor installers, insulation workers, carpenters, roofers, masonry workers, painters, maintenance workers, and solar photovoltaic installers. As the name implies, this category also includes workers who deal with mining and oil and gas extraction, such as continuous mining machine operators, earth drillers, and derrick operators.
The preponderance of oil and gas extraction that puts Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land in first with 60.1, TX; New Orleans-Metairie, LA and Oklahoma City, OK are second and third, respectively.
* * *
Health care jobs, such as physicians, surgeons, lab technicians, dentists, physical therapists, and support technologists, must necessarily exist everywhere, which drives down location quotients. Still, some cities rise to the top. And they’re probably not the cities you’d expect...
Fortunately, for four out of the five fastest growing job categories, chances are, job-seekers won’t necessarily need to relocate in order to find opportunities in their field, but they might want to in order to chase the perfect position or pursue growth. The coasts are especially ripe with opportunity, but even Midwestern and inland areas, like Minneapolis and Austin, offer ample opportunity in these popular careers...
Comments
That's great, but I don't want to live in any of those shitholes.
"When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe"- Thomas Jefferson
In reply to That's great, but I don't… by CunnyFunt
Did he really say that? That's good...
It's good to see Pittsburgh making a comeback. Beautiful country in Western PA.
In reply to "When we get piled upon one… by Juggernaut x2
Lousy graphics.
In reply to Did he really say that? … by Gap Admirer
Pennsylvania has high taxes.
In reply to Lousy graphics. by Bastiat
From when did computer and mathematical occupations, financial, and construction become high-tech?
Outside of construction, what do they actually create? Remember, we are talking about computer programmers and money-changers. Granted that tracking and spying on each individual became a much easy business.
In reply to Pennsylvania has high taxes. by DownWithYogaPants
Beat me to it.
Urban sprawls piled in excrement that reaches to the sky.
In reply to That's great, but I don't… by CunnyFunt
With that rapidly expanding medical center business in Houston, I thought they would be near the top in that field. There's hospitals and dentists offices/buildings going up like crazy there when i drove thru.
In reply to Beat me to it… by Lost in translation
Houston needs all of those medical centers to provide services to the violent dindu population there.
In reply to With that rapidly expanding… by Never One Roach
Chicago is a complete shit hole for Computer Science / Mathematics
Been unemployed or underemployed for YEARS, job market needs STEM they said..... bullshit
I didn't need a degree in math to create a discounted linear equation at a stupid financial firm.
So what's the game now, go back for a Masters to do general statistics and go in debt 80K+... FML
In reply to With that rapidly expanding… by Never One Roach
Chicago doesn't even make any of these charts.... broke ass state
Thanks Richard "Debt" Daley followed by Rahm "Circque du Collateral" Emmanuel
In reply to Chicago is a complete shit… by ProstoDoZiemi
You got a degree in math?
That's something, I couldn't get through second year. Partial differential equations, fuck me, also mathematical proofs.
And I'm no genius, but I'm not the bluntest tool in the shed either.
In reply to Chicago is a complete shit… by ProstoDoZiemi
You don't need a college degree to be a Programmer...just certifications...hit the books! :)
In reply to Chicago is a complete shit… by ProstoDoZiemi
Bro get the frik out. sell you shit move to Omaha or Lincoln Ne or South Dakota
In reply to Chicago is a complete shit… by ProstoDoZiemi
You're looking for somebody else to pay you what you're worth? In a Capitalist society evolving to full-on Feudalism? You don't need a degree in math to understand that isn't going to work out. I didn't get a degree in anything and I figured that out.
What you need to do to get paid what you're worth is figure out what other people aren't doing and can't do, which you can do, and then sell them your services at the price they're willing to pay.
My trade involves doing things people in corporate structures don't have time to do, since they're all in meetings all day long competing socially with each other. So I do their projects for them semi-anonymously, and billing by the project, earn several times more in a year than they do. Having a number of clients keeps any one of them from figuring out how much I actually do earn, which is none of their business anyway.
This has nothing to do with where one lives. I live in Minneapolis and love it, and love to hear it described as a "shithole" by people who only skim USA Today-level information. May they stay far away, and let them never look at this area's true statistics and characteristics.
The point is, if you live in a Feudal or neo-Feudal society, you're never going to become Nobility unless you were born into it one way or another. If you join the household of a Feudal Noble, that can be OK if you have no personal ambition and unless and until said Nobleman loses out to a rival Oligarch, in which case you go down with the ship.
Far better to become an outside trusted procurer to an array of Oligarchs, not linked closely to any particular one.
That you could do anywhere, though it's convenient to live near a good assortment of Feudal Noble Oligarchs. The point is that you're looking to live by your own wits and resources, not at the pleasure of a potentially fickle and unreliable Nobleman who knows the true value you provide, and will as a matter of course pay you less than that.
In reply to Chicago is a complete shit… by ProstoDoZiemi
Hey downvoting libtards let this be a warning. When you're running down my ZH friends you're walking on the Fightin side of me.
In reply to That's great, but I don't… by CunnyFunt
Get back in your goddam hover-round and STFU.
In reply to Hey downvoting libtards let… by tncaver
Amen to that! The are modern American shitholes. Some are even H1B shitholes.
In reply to That's great, but I don't… by CunnyFunt
For the last few years, IT job requirements have been piling up (arbitrary e.g. we need an expert in assembly, C, C++, J, J++, C#, C##, Python, Algol, COBOL, SW architecture, 20 Databases), while the pay has been consistently going down. Seems to me this has accelerated in the last 4-5 years.
Days of non-H1B workers in IT are numbered.
In reply to Amen to that! The are modern… by DarthVaderMentor
Most of those 'requirements' are arbitrary, exaggerated, and completely made up. But the alphabet soup of "requirements" allows them to plausibly reject Americans who are qualified for the jobs by simply pointing to trivial defects in their knowledge.
The same firms often will turn around and hire a H-1B at a lower rate, convincing the H-1B that they don't 'deserve' the better rate because they are deficient some of the requirements. The H-1B, usually sub-continental, being overjoyed and thrilled not to be sent back to what T-Rump would call a 'shithole'.
In reply to For the last few years, IT… by Sokhmate
I've suspected that for a while
In reply to Most of those 'requirements'… by pitz
"not to be sent back to what T-Rump would call a 'shithole'. "
The small middle class in those countries call them shitholes too, which is why they want to get out.
In reply to Most of those 'requirements'… by pitz
Many job requirements are compiled and set by HR executives. Anybody who knows anybody in HR knows they are the most useless, skill-free people in regular employment. They exist only because competent Management is nearly non-existent in modern American corporate structure. HR provides a screen against lawsuits, and removes actual Managers from responsibility for their employment and management decisions.
Back when I was an employee, and a manager, HR people routinely asked me to write up job descriptions for myself and the people we needed to hire. They had no idea what I was really doing, or what the people I managed were doing; they just knew it was very profitable so they figured they needed to get their fingers into it. I always made the job descriptions very specific-seeming, with no actual meaning, and completely unintelligible. And then when the HR people didn't understand what I had written, I just kept a straight face and reworded it slightly until they claimed it made sense so as not to appear foolish in front of me.
I've never gotten a job through an HR process, and as a white male without a college degree and now 51 years old and accustomed to making about 3x median household income, I never will get a job of any kind again. Lucky for me, I'm self-employed and have a large network of people who hire me to solve their problems, outside of HR processes, as a project-specific cost.
In reply to Most of those 'requirements'… by pitz
A seemingly unrelated story. I know a guy who was working in CT, but his son and their family was in Florida. For Thanksgiving dinner, they set places at the table in CT for the 4 in Florida and put a laptop in front of their plates. By Skype, they all had Thanksgiving dinner together even though they were 1500 miles apart.
An IT worker like a programmer can be at a desk in Bangalore and do just as good a job as somebody in Silicon Valley, at 1/8 the cost. Desk in the next cubicle or desk on the other side of the planet, it doesn't matter. And none of the H1B paperwork.
In other words, don't plan on a shutdown of the H1B system to save American jobs. A programmer in India, college educated and with an excellent commend of the English language (better than most Americans), can live a very good life on $11,000 in a big Indian city. It takes about $85,000 to duplicate this in America. The US is a very expensive place to run a business. That's why the jobs left.
In reply to For the last few years, IT… by Sokhmate
The US needs a reset. The system is too bloated.
In reply to A seemingly unrelated story… by roddy6667
A few things, just based on my personal experience:
1. H1B are going down, way down. From personal experience in the IT field, visas are MUCH harder to get now, even with close to peak employment for developers/devops in the NY and Bay Area.
2. IT/dev jobs are in very much an employees market even in the UK! in the UK (even north) dev/devops salaries are up over 35% in the past 2-3 years.
Cloud-based computing has made things more complex (while more powerful). I know everyone says it's supposed to make things easier, and it does in the right circumstances, but there is a steep learning curve for most devs. Still waiting for the culling to happen, just like in 2002, but nowhere near that yet.
In reply to A seemingly unrelated story… by roddy6667
I've seen a lot of that too. But sometimes outrageous 'requirements' are used to prevent anyone already there from being 'promoted', better to bring in the new person (always from out of town and with no experience in whatever industry is involved) or, as you say, the ultimate outsider, the H1B.
OT, but at least I can post to this story. The last one rudely dissed me as unauthorized.
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In reply to For the last few years, IT… by Sokhmate
Sorry bud, but I live and work in The Woodlands, TX. It is not a shit hole.
In reply to That's great, but I don't… by CunnyFunt
Which areas have the most SJW occupations?
There's no chart for never-been-employed.
In reply to Which areas have the most… by Stuck on Zero
'There's no chart for never-been-employed'
Man, there are going to be some serious repercussions for those folks who live with mom and dad. I've seen it up close a few times. Usually one parent passes, and the other simply cuts the child loose. No gentle transition from your lifetime room in your lifetime house to a tent. Just one day, it happens.
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In reply to There's no chart for never… by Arrow4Truth
And nearly all of those Computer/Mathematical jobs went to foreign nationals on H-1B visas. While domestic applicants mostly had their applications ignored.
As a result, 3 out of 4 workers in places like the Silicon Valley are foreign-born, while Americans languish on the unemployment lines, especially if they possess STEM degrees.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/01/17/h-1b-foreign-citizens-make-up-ne…
Fucking snowflakes, always bitching.
In reply to And nearly all of those… by pitz
Whats up with the shitty image quality on the graphics?
Simple - they don't give a shit.
In reply to Whats up with the shitty… by Blue Steel 309
How many of those computer jobs are just shuffling bullshit back and forth?
How much time is spent preparing bullshit for meaningless meetings astounds me.
It's no wonder most publicly traded companies have to cook the books. 99% of the employees really don't do anything of value.
You are so correct; perhaps more so than you know.
Those employees at corporate HQ's spend, some of them, 8 hrs. per day in meetings, competing socially with one another, and have to hire contractors, free-lancers, and outside consultants to actually do their jobs. They can't do their own jobs because they're in meetings all the time.
As long as one incorporates oneself and doesn't become a contractor or free-lancer, and remains a consultant, one can make a fine living doing the work the corporate drones can't find the time to do because the corporate management structure and model doesn't allow them to do their work.
The key is to never go in to the corporate HQ other than for the occasional meeting, and to have more than one client. That way one can't become subsumed into the corporate structure, which is the kiss of death in all aspects.
In reply to How many of those computer… by adr
The first sentence of this article is reason to stop reading. "the US unemployment rate is at its lowest level in two decades."
Really. WTF? Does the author really believe this? If so, he has absolutely no credibility.
We need new management at Walmart. Many of you don't know the story. I'm new management at Walmart. I started training on Dec 4. So much has happened already with my mess of a store that it is laughable. I'm having a field day with this shit show but I'm making money. Basically, I got a phone call back in November from a WMT recruiter asking if I wanted be an Asst Store Manager. OK. That led to three interviews and I was offered the position and that is when I found out how much WMT actually pays their management. The compensation is way better you think. I accept and start the training but then we had Xmas/quanzaa where I worked in the store. Just before Christmas, our not-white female store manager from the south took a leave of absence. I met somebody by pure serendipity who has a lawsuit against said manager and WMT and it lawyer-ed up. Every he has told me has come true so far.
Right after New Year, I was called to the front office wit the co-managers and was told that I need to take a drug test for reasonable suspicion. I could deny and be terminated or go through with the test. I chose the latter option because I was not doing anything wrong. I was told I was suspended with pay.
Two weeks go by and the drug test come back inconclusive.(negative) So I am reinstated and asked if I can come back the next day. No, I can't do that because I made all of these appointments so I made them pay for an extra day off. I got paid for just generally fucking off. It was unreasonable to begin with. I could have said that I had a job interview in Idaho or something like that but I didn't go that far. Just not cool. To were kissing my ass after that fiasco.
Now another week later and we had one Co-manager walked out of the store this morning and the other we don't know about. I never said a word about that drug test fail to anyone. I was hired by corporate. It's about more than that though. I was told they could both be gone and the position eliminated. That leave the rest of us in a situation where the only management left are assistant managers. I found myself running a Walmart by myself a few times in the last week. I don't even have full access to every system yet but I managed to do it. I sure as hell don't know everything. It's a business so the tenets of running a business apply. I love the damn job and I love what it pays. The chaos is awesome.
I requested the store am at for a reason and I have one guy hired and I am looking for more. It is time for a change. You might have heard that two days ago WMT fired a shitload of people from corporate. WMT is cleaning house. There is management that has been taking advantage of the situation for far too long.
My whole suspension caused me to miss the rest of my training so now I have to start all over. That costs me money and benefits. There is a legal issue yet. I'll pick my battles.
Interesting that one of my fellow Assistants was a licensed securities broker for Wells Fargo but he couldn't stand it he said. He didn't elaborate as to why other than being bored but he still talks about it. I have to keep my eye on him. I don't say shit about what I know.
This is the world we live in.
I wish I would have never went to university and just started with WMT right out of high school. I would be retired by now. One thing I do know for sure is that you will always have customers at Walmart. Who wants glamorous? Merica shops at Walmart and so do you so keep the snide comments to a minimum.
"I wish I would have never went to university"
"We need new management at Walmart. "
Uh, yeah, I'll agree for a couple of reasons...
In reply to We need new management at… by Manipuflation
These are all shithole cities!
Yeah well this may be true but you have to be under 45 years old. As a retired mathematician I can tell you no one will even talk to you if you're over 50. I retired from the University at 60 thought I'd get a job in industry. Ha. You can forget that. The only jobs for people my age is as a greater a walmart.
" The only jobs for people my age..."
Ok, so its not just me. Too white and too old (57).
Odd to see that knowledge base go unused. Retired friends seem to just "try to stay busy", whatever that means. What, busy till I die? Now what? The state is done with my serfdom?
I've learned to hate volunteering for no-profit enterprises. It just leads to people walking over me.
ITS TRUE: No good deed EVER goes unpunished!
In reply to Yeah well this may be true… by DrBrown
I'm 69. I retired at 65, bought a lovely middle-aged RV and have been traveling for 3+ years. I was alarmed at the prospect of shaking my fist at the tv until I died, so I sold the tv and moved into the RV. Best decision I ever made, I think.
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In reply to " The only jobs for people… by Donate Moar
Fastest Growing Occupation ???
Growing Dope.
And bless their sticky little fingers!
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In reply to Fastest Growing Occupation ?… by William Dorritt
Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford is a great place to find a job? Statistics lie. In reality, people are moving out of the area in droves. Hartford is one of the poorest cities in the country that is 62% black and Puerto Rican. Violent crime is rampant. The city is on the verge of bankruptcy. East Hartford was once a great blue-collar town, but Pratt & Whitney has cut its workforce to less than a quarter of what it was in the Eighties. Now EH is largely blacks and poor white trash too poor to move. Most of the white youth are Wiggers. They wear the same falling-down pants and talk the same street trash patois as the ghetto blacks. Drug use is rampant. West Hartford has more money, but it cannot make the whole area financially solvent. I lived in West Hartford for a few years, and in the greater Hartford area for much of my life. These articles based on numbers crunched by a computer are misleading and useless.
Stay calm,
drink plenty of fluoridated water, take a couple of Prozacs and a fist full of non-addictive opium pills
and call the: unemployment, section 8, welfare, food banks and other freebee numbers in the morning aka around 2 pm.
Be sure to keep your Obamacare and medicare up to date so you don't miss any free pill prescriptions, billionaire pill pushers need money too.
In reply to Hartford-West Hartford-East… by roddy6667
You left out the part about the 96 million American and growing without work that are no longer being counted because their unemployment benefits are used up....
And the worst part of this read about "4.1%" unemployment is the flood of undocumented (you read that correctly) UNDOCUMENTED "H1BI visa" like work coming into the Country to do those IT programming jobs to take the work from those that cost too much -while our government tells U.S. that they are fighting the good fight in a "war on terror"!...
You should see what works at banks like HSBC and Capital One that have nothing but Indian IT recruiting firms hiring with many getting to the U.S. that aren't even guaranteed a job when they step on the tarmac.
This article is only informative to the H1B and illegals who now enjoy more opportunities and a higher status than American citizens of all colors and forced to go through the US propaganda education camps. Unlike the corporate revered foreigners, American students are being fully educated in revisionist history, Hate and divisionist ideologies and identity politics. If they're not destroying statues,memorials they're demanding free kotex's and burning cars. Google is the shining example here.
MAGA.... not these folks.