Map Shows Cities With the Best Job Markets
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
Today's job market is rife with economic uncertainty, AI disruption and widespread layoffs from government agencies to tech giants.
However, where you live can play a major role in the job market you are navigating. In a new report, Checkr ranked the 100 largest U.S. cities based on job opportunities and earnings potential.
While cities like Raleigh, North Carolina. topped the list, residents in Bakersfield, California are facing more challenges in finding a job.
Why It Matters
Businesses have reached a record low for hiring, according to executive coaching and advisory firm Vistage. In a recent report, Vistage said only 42 percent of surveyed small and midsize business CEOs anticipate increasing their employee headcount in the year ahead.
That marks the lowest level since the second quarter of 2020 and is down from 45 percent in the first quarter of 2025.
What To Know
The top five cities with the best job markets in 2025, according to Checkr, were Raleigh; Nashville, Tennessee; Austin, Texas; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Portland, Maine.
While Raleigh boasted strong tech and biotech industries, proximity to top-tier universities and steady population growth, the city also offers varied high-wage opportunities and relatively affordable housing.
Nashville was a strong source of health care and entertainment jobs, along with a multitude of startups and "cultural draw," Checkr said in its report.
Austin, another Southern city in the top five, had a notable tech expansion and offers many high-paying jobs and a startup-friendly environment.
Meanwhile, the bottom five list included Bakersfield; Scranton, Pennsylvania; McAllen, Texas; Fresco, California; and Memphis, Tennessee.
"What still feels like a conundrum is how two cities just 200 miles apart—Memphis and Nashville—can have such drastically different outcomes," Kevin Thompson, the CEO of 9i Capital Group and the host of the 9innings podcast, told Newsweek.
Bakersfield experienced a high unemployment rate and generally saw lower education attainment rates. Scranton is still recovering from industrial decline and McAllen saw consistently low wages and lack of high-growth industries.
"The problem for cities like these [is] problems tend to grow with time, as fewer jobs and opportunities for higher income lead some to leave these cities and others to rule out these locations as viable places to live," Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek.
Checkr ranked the cities based on new data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. This included factors like income growth, unemployment rate and even the percentage of households earning more than $200,000.
The Austin Food & Wine Festival at Auditorium Shores on November 2, 2024, in Austin, Texas.
The Austin Food & Wine Festival at Auditorium Shores on November 2, 2024, in Austin, Texas.What People Are Saying
Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek: "When it comes to cities in the United States with excelling job markets, it's still largely a story of the usual suspects. Cities like Nashville, Austin and Raleigh that have benefited from booming economies and a sharp rise in population in the years leading into and during the pandemic continue to see more employment opportunities at better wages. Other cities like Jackson, Mississippi, and Toledo, Ohio, continue to struggle, as job and salary growth remain relatively low compared to the rest of the country."
Kevin Thompson, the CEO of 9i Capital Group and the host of the 9innings podcast, told Newsweek: "Cities seeing growth typically have strong sectors like tech or health care. Meanwhile, cities like Rochester and Scranton—parts of the old Rust Belt—are still feeling the effects of industrial decline. Many of the manufacturing jobs that once supported those regions have moved overseas."
What Happens Next
Thompson said in the regions that are struggling, low wages and limited wage growth are the common threads.
"It's becoming a theme across the country—employers remain hesitant to raise wages, which either pushes talent to relocate or forces industries to shrink or move abroad," he said. "That's a major reason manufacturing left in the first place: cheaper labor elsewhere. I'd like to think the outcome would be higher wages here at home, but honestly, that still feels like a pipe dream."
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