Five Best Cities for Job Hunting

While New Yorkers continue to feel the pressure of the financial sector's fallout, other cities are faring far better.

According to the latest Best-Performing Cities survey from economic think tank the Milken Institute, metro areas like Provo-Orem, Utah, and Raleigh-Cary, N.C., are actually bucking national unemployment trends by offering opportunities in growing sectors like technology and health care. (The survey tracks data on job creation, wage increases and the amount of the region's GDP that stems from technology products and services created between 2002 and 2007, the most recent data available. The survey also takes into account the Bureau of Labor Statistics employment data from March 2007 to March 2008.)

Besides playing host to growing industries, another defining feature of the cities that topped the Milken Institute's list was that these locales were relatively unaffected by the housing meltdown, says Ross DeVol, director of regional economics at the Milken Institute. In fact, cities in California and Florida that traditionally make the list fell off this year due to the impact of the subprime mess on housing and construction labor markets.

Provo-Orem, Utah

Utah isn't just about skiing and Mormons. In fact, Provo, home to Brigham Young University, is quickly becoming a hotspot for tech talent. Big IT services and hardware players, including Micron Technology and Novell collectively employ around 3,000 residents, says DeVol. And, in the past five years, angel investors have pumped more than $30 million into Utah start-up businesses, many of which are in Provo-Orem, says Alan Hall, an angel investor and founder of Grow Utah Ventures, which focuses on economic development. All of this has helped Provo-Orem's employment grow at a rate that's far above the national average. Between 2002 and 2007, employment grew by an impressive 16.5 percentage points, according to DeVol.

Raleigh-Cary, North Carolina

College students used to flock to New York and Washington, D.C., post-graduation. Now, they're heading a little farther south. Not only is Raleigh's relatively low cost of living attractive to young folks, but so are the job prospects. Tech giants like IBM, Cisco Systems and privately-held software maker SAS Institute employ some 20,000 of the metro-area's residents, says Devol. For non-techies, drug maker GlaxoSmithKline is the largest biopharmaceutical employer in the region. Between 2007 and 2008, Raleigh experienced a 3.6% bump in job growth, the largest in the country. (One caveat: From March to July, Raleigh-Cary's unemployment rate has increased from 4.1% to a recent 5.4%, according to the BLS).

Salt Lake City

Wall Street may be seeing red, but this Mormon mecca is making profits hand over fist. Job growth was up 2.2% between March 2007 and March 2008, in large part due to banks like Zions Bancorp and Wells Fargo, which collectively employ around 13,000 of the city's residents, says DeVol. Credit-card issuer Discover Financial Services also calls Salt Lake City home. Both Hall and DeVol agree that these companies are not likely to fall like their peers on the East coast. Health care also dominates the city's economy.

Intermountain Health Care, for example, operates a hospital, clinics and doctors offices, and employs more than 27,000 area residents.

Austin-Round Rock, Texas

The capital of Texas may be best known for cultivating the live music scene, but it's also proving to be fertile ground for tech companies. IBM, as well as electronic components firms Applied Materials, Flextronics and Samsung Austin Semiconductor have offices there, and collectively employ more than 13,000 residents, says DeVol. Many of these employees are picked up after graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, says Greg Garrison, president of Startup Staffing Group, a finance, HR and recruiting company. Overall, this metropolitan area registered the fourth largest job growth -- 2.89% -- between March 2007 and March 2008 of all the cities Milken surveyed.

Huntsville, Alabama

Alabama has had its moments in the spotlight. Lynrd Skynrd paid homage to the state in its Southern rock classic and Forrest Gump lovingly called the state home. But perhaps one of Alabama's highest distinctions is playing host to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. Located in the northern city of Huntsville, the science and exploration center is ground zero for Ares 1, NASA's attempt to carry missions to the moon, Mars and the solar system. Many contractors and subcontractors in the aerospace and engineering sectors, including Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Teledyne Brown Engineering, have opened branches here hoping to tap into employment opportunities, says DeVol. And more jobs are on the way: The Army Space Missile Defense Command recently completed its move from Arlington, Va., and the Missile Defense Agency is scheduled to move more than 2,200 employees to Huntsville in the next few years.

[Straight from SmartMoney]