November 2009: The 10 Best and Worst Cities to Find a New Job

Northern Exposure: Job Seekers are better off looking to the Northeast when seeking out the most opportunities.

For most job seekers, today's employment market is defined by uncertainty: Is the economy truly beginning to show signs of life? Given that employment is traditionally a "lagging indicator," does improvement on Wall Street mean that a rebound in hiring is just around the corner? Or has the recent financial crisis changed the way companies operate (and how many employees they keep) forever?

With all these questions confronting job seekers, the prospect of finding steady work in today's economy can seem daunting. But despite the turmoil, there is one aspect of the current market that's remained relatively consistent over the past few months – the U.S. cities offering workers the best chance of finding a new job.

November marks the fifth month in a row that Washington, D.C. (Index score: 135) has offered more job opportunities per capita than any other metro area in the U.S. Boston (Index score: 107) has boasted a similarly uniform performance, once again landing in second place, although with a jobs per capita score that's 28 points behind the nation's capital. In fact, in four out of the past five months, the five cities with the most job opportunities per capita have remained the same: Washington, D.C., Boston, San Francisco, Seattle and Atlanta. And since June, not one of these metro areas has ranked lower than eighth for per capita job availability – one of the few constants in a job market that otherwise has been virtually impossible to predict.

Moving further down the list of the best cities to find a job, metro areas in the Northeastern U.S. dominated, holding six of the top 10 positions. Breaking down the top 10, per capita job availability in most cities remained unchanged from last month, although both Pittsburgh (Index score: 57) and Atlanta (Index score: 62) manged to improve, moving up two and three places, respectively. Interestingly, Atlanta's jump brings the Southeastern economic hub back into the top five after it unexpectedly fell to eighth place in October. On the other hand, after showing improvement last month, Chicago (Index score: 56) fell three places to 10th overall, as the city's job market was likely hurt by the poor performance of the Midwest as a whole.

Surveying 30 major metro areas across the U.S., the CareerCast.com/JobSerf Employment Index measures the volume of managerial job openings per capita each month to determine the best and worst locations for job seekers. So if you're frustrated by the uncertainty of today's economy and want to give yourself the best chance of finding a new job, it might be time to check out one of the 10 best cities to find a managerial job in November: