US Cities With the Fastest Growing Job Markets

Austin, San Jose, Houston, Charlotte and Nashville led the United States in job growth last year, according to an analysis of the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics by Aaron Renn. Even hard-hit Detroit and Pittsburgh make the cut of the top 10 leading cities for job growth. The four remaining cities in the top 10 include Salt Lake City, Dallas and Raleigh.

51 US metros regions were included in the study; those regions with populations of one million people or more, for which full data is available for analysis.

Over the same time period, the national unemployment rate dropped from 9.1 percent to 8.3 percent. Of the 372 metro areas, 329 had lower unemployment rates in December than the previous year.

Other cities of note in the study include Washington, D.C., which ranked 29th, while greater New York ranked 25th.

A few of the factors associated with job creation across America’s largest metros include:

Human capital (skills)
Technology

There was no relationship cited between the level of education (college grads) and job growth. The level of analytical skills in a metro did however, play a role in the job growth.

Another worthy note in the study, job growth appears to be occurring in metros with lower levels of unionization. Both the economic crisis and recovery have been uneven, falling most heavily on the least skilled and least advantaged. As the labor market divides between highly paid, high-skilled jobs and much lower paid and lower skilled service jobs, resulting in job growth across the large metros.

For more information on the Charlotte job market, read other articles pertaining to our Charlotte business environment.