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September 2010: The 10 Best and Worst Cities to Find a Job

By: CareerCast.com/JobSerf Employment Index

To determine the cities with the 10 best and worst job markets each month, the CareerCast.com/JobSerf Index surveys 30 different major metro areas across the U.S. in order to determine their per capita job availability. Rather than simply reporting the cities with the most and least jobs, the Index measures the number of job openings relative to population. This gives a more complete picture of how easy (or difficult) it is to get a new job in each metro area.

By: CareerCast.com/JobSerf Employment Index

After boasting a strong performance in July, employment activity declined once again in August, putting national employment activity on pace to fall back below 2007 levels as soon as September.

CareerCast.com/JobSerf Employment Index
August 2010

August Hiring Overall

August Hiring by Job Title

August Hiring by City

August Hiring by Region

According to the latest CareerCast.com/JobSerf Index, employment activity in August fell by 4.6 points to an Index score of 102.3 overall. This marks the first decline in employment activity since May, and is just the third month that has seen a reduction in hiring all year. That said, employment activity is still trending higher than 2007 levels, and has managed to remain above the 100-point threshold for two straight months for the first time since July - August of 2008.

By: CareerCast.com/JobSerf Employment Index

The past seven months have seen very little change among the best cities for finding a job in the U.S., with the only major development being Philadelphia's rise to overtake San Diego for 10th place in February. Mirroring the region's performance as a whole, cities in the Northeast have dominated the list, holding as many as five of the top positions in a given month. This trend continued in August, as Washington, D.C., Boston, Baltimore and New York all once again finished among the top cities on the list.

By: CareerCast.com/JobSerf Employment Index

Employment activity across the U.S. continued to rise in July, marking a 51% improvement since the beginning of the year.

CareerCast.com/JobSerf Employment Index
July 2010

July Hiring Overall

July Hiring by Job Title

July Hiring by City

July Hiring by Region

Summer is typically a weak period for hiring, but during the great recession of 2009, the job market defied expectations and actually improved by a surprising 29% over the summer, reaching its highest point in 11 months. Now a year later, the same trend is emerging. After several months of stagnant performance, hiring across the U.S. jumped by 14.3 points in July, a gain of more than 15%.

By: CareerCast.com/JobSerf Employment Index

In June, employment activity among the 30 major metro areas surveyed by the CareerCast.com/JobSerf Employment Index was extremely consistent, as all but one city posted an increase in hiring for the month. The employment picture in July, however, was more nuanced, with gains and losses spread throughout the list. The biggest surprises were among the 10 best cities to find a job, where despite a strong performance nationally, just one of the metro areas managed to gain ground in July.

By: Jay Martin

The CareerCast.com/JobSerf Employment Index has tracked the online job market since January 2007. At the start of each month, the research team searches for jobs on select major job boards and also on job search engines (sometimes referred to as aggregators). Using search words to retrieve jobs for different levels of management across dozens of geographies (both cities and states), the teams then review the returns to determine the number of real, relevant jobs that exist in each geography, at each career level, and on each job site.