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

After only breaking even in June and July, Washington, D.C., once again saw a net gain in employment activity – although just by a single point. But even though job growth may have slowed considerably in recent months, the nation’s capital is still offers job seekers the most opportunities by a considerable margin, leading second place Boston by more than 30 points.

After a disappointing performance July that saw employment activity fall by 14 points, Boston managed to regain some ground in August with a modest, four point gain. At this pace the Massachusetts capital is unlikely to overtake Washington, D.C., anytime soon, but is also in little danger of falling further down the list.

San Francisco also experienced a sharp decline in per capita job availability in July, but managed to gain much of those losses back in August. In addition, the Bay Area is the third (and last) city among the 30 surveyed by the CareerCast.com/JobSerf Index to post a score above 100, beating its base score from 2007.

Despite its location in the poor-performing West, Seattle managed a healthy five point gain in employment activity in August. This puts the emerald city on pace to become just the fourth major metro area in the U.S. to post an Index score above 100 by October.

After Cleveland, Atlanta was the second-best performing city in August, managing an eight point gain to pull within just four points of Seattle. After falling to eighth place in July, this gain was enough to bring the Georgia capital back up to fifth overall, and puts it on pace to climb further up the rankings soon.

Even though Baltimore managed to post a three point gain in August, the city wound up being overtaken by Atlanta. In addition, the home of the Orioles is in danger of falling behind New York as soon as next month, and could slide even further down the list by the end of the year.

Employment activity in New York gained four points in August, to finish just behind Baltimore in seventh place overall. However despite being in the Northeast, the big apple remains well behind Washington, D.C. and Boston, which have become the powerhouses of the region when it comes to per capita job availability.

The Midwest may have enjoyed the strongest performance of any U.S. region in August, but this did little to help its largest city. Chicago only managed a one-point gain in employment activity for the month, tying Washington, D.C., for the worst performance on the 10 best list. Combined with strong performances by Atlanta and New York, this caused the windy city to drop from sixth to eighth place overall.

Finishing 18th out of all 30 cities for employment activity as recently as January, Cleveland has managed a stunning, 111% gain in its volume of job openings per capita over the past seven months. This is the city’s first time on the 10 best list, as it overtook Denver to finish in ninth place overall.

The second all-new city to reach the 10 best list in August, Dallas benefited from a seven point gain to overtake Philadelphia and finish in 10th place. However, despite finishing in the top third of all metro areas measured by the CareerCast.com/JobSerf Index, Dallas’ employment activity score still trails that of Washington, D.C., by more than 100 points.