These Cities Have The Most Jobs In America's Fastest Growing Industries

At 4.1%, the US unemployment rate is at its lowest level in two decades. Still, as underemployment and stagnant wages erode consumers' buying power, an employee's ability to score a well-paying job today depends in part on their willingness to relocate.

To help those on the job market find the cities best for them, Adobo analyzed the data and create easy-to-read guides to the career opportunities available in each of the country's top 50 metro areas.

Unsurprisingly, the field seeing the the fastest growth between 2012 and 2015 is computer and mathematical occupations, which have grown by more than 20% over the past four years. In a relatively distant second place, community and social service occupations have grown by 15.3%, followed more closely by business and financial operations occupations (13.4%) and construction and extraction occupations (13.2%). The fifth fastest-growing field involves health care practitioner and technical occupations, which grew 12.3%.

First, Adobo breaks down how many jobs per 1,000 jobs exist in each category in each of the top 50 metros...

 

Adobo

Our nationā€™s capital tops the list for business and financial operations, with a solid 98.9 jobs in the field per every 1,000 - the highest density of any occupation in any of the top 25 MSAs. Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO (79.5) and San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA (78.5) also posted solid numbers.

For the fastest-growing occupation - computers and math - Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV, offers the highest job density, with nearly 73 out of every 1,000 jobs being in the field. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA - recently named the countryā€™s second-best tech city - has 67 job in the field per 1,000. Somewhat surprisingly, Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA, scored the lowest of the top 25 MSAs, with only 11 jobs in tech for every 1,000 jobs in the area.

Tech-heavy jobs include everything from software and web developers, support specialists, systems analysts, network administrators, and programmers, to statisticians, mathematicians, and computer research scientists. They've been growing at an unsurpassed rate since 2012, at an average of 4.8% a year - which would be higher if not for a stumble between 2014 and 2015, when the sectorā€™s employment grew only 1.5%. The year before, employment grew an incredible 8.1%.

Unsurprisingly, San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara CA - the metro area that includes the San Francisco Bay area - leads with tech jobs, blowing nearly every other city out of the water.

TWO

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Social workers, counselors, religious workers, probation officers, therapists, and community health workers comprise this universally important job category, which means that these workers arenā€™t concentrated in metros. Since these jobs are everywhere, many areas are on par with the national average, leading to lower overall location quotients.

In terms of jobs per 1,000 for the top 25 metro areas, Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD, topped the list. But now that weā€™re looking at location quotient for the the top 50 metro areas, the Philadelphia area drops to #3, with about 1.4 times more jobs than the national average.

Instead, Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT, rises to the top, with 23.3 jobs in the field per every 1,000 and a location quotient of 1.6. Providence-Warwick, RI-MA, comes in second place with about 1.5 times more jobs than the national average concentration. Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH, and Buffalo-Cheektowaga-Niagara Falls, NY, both have a location quotient of 1.3.

Three

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Much like community and social service workers, business and financial operations - a group that includes accountants, real estate assessors, auditors, financial analysts, human resource specialists, claims adjusters, loan officers, logisticians, training and development specialists, event planners and similar employees - are scattered around the country, meaning the location quotients are fairly low.

As we mentioned earlier, our nation's capital has nearly double the national average concentration of business and financial jobs, with a 1.9 location quotient. Sacramentoā€“Rosevilleā€“Arden-Arcade, CA; Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO; and San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA, all have location quotients around 1.5.


Four

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When it comes to construction and extraction jobs, this broad category largely includes jobs that are necessary everywhere, such as electricians, floor installers, insulation workers, carpenters, roofers, masonry workers, painters, maintenance workers, and solar photovoltaic installers. As the name implies, this category also includes workers who deal with mining and oil and gas extraction, such as continuous mining machine operators, earth drillers, and derrick operators.

The preponderance of oil and gas extraction that puts Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land in first with 60.1, TX; New Orleans-Metairie, LA and Oklahoma City, OK are second and third, respectively.

 

Six

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Health care jobs, such as physicians, surgeons, lab technicians, dentists, physical therapists, and support technologists, must necessarily exist everywhere, which drives down location quotients. Still, some cities rise to the top. And theyā€™re probably not the cities youā€™d expect...

 


Six

Fortunately, for four out of the five fastest growing job categories, chances are, job-seekers wonā€™t necessarily need to relocate in order to find opportunities in their field, but they might want to in order to chase the perfect position or pursue growth. The coasts are especially ripe with opportunity, but even Midwestern and inland areas, like Minneapolis and Austin, offer ample opportunity in these popular careers...

 

 

Comments

ProstoDoZiemi Never One Roach Sat, 01/27/2018 - 02:49 Permalink

Chicago is a complete shit hole for Computer Science / Mathematics

Been unemployed or underemployed for YEARS,   job market needs STEM they said..... bullshit

I didn't need a degree in math to create a discounted linear equation at a stupid financial firm.

So what's the game now, go back for a Masters to do general statistics and go in debt 80K+... FML

In reply to by Never One Roach

ProstoDoZiemi AUD Sun, 01/28/2018 - 02:23 Permalink

I have 2 degrees.

I did struggle with proofs in Discrete Mathematics class, no question.  My professor cut the bullshit out of Differential Equations by letting us use software assuming we've taken 3 or more levels of calculus and did not want us to waste time doing it by hand as you know 1 exercise can take 10 minutes  as well as 1 minor mistake and the entire exercise is wrong, so instead he wanted to focus on the techniques, we still had to show work line by line, it was still a lot of work  20 to 30 exercise per class session for homework, but the software helped no question.

** I too am no genius and also not the brightest crayon in the box lol

In reply to by AUD

ProstoDoZiemi Stopdreaming Sun, 01/28/2018 - 02:31 Permalink

I suck at programming, I can do just enough to make life easier at work to leave on time. I'll take the time to figure out how to automate crap even if it saves me 10, 15 , 30 seconds per task; in the long run I never miss a train and have to wait another hour for the next one.

I wish that I can be a better programmer, no matter how hard I try or how much I practice it just doesn't register. I can see the end result and putting the plan together, but it's just the coding itself, I struggle trying to connect 1 to another.

In reply to by Stopdreaming

swmnguy ProstoDoZiemi Sat, 01/27/2018 - 10:44 Permalink

You're looking for somebody else to pay you what you're worth?  In a Capitalist society evolving to full-on Feudalism?  You don't need a degree in math to understand that isn't going to work out.  I didn't get a degree in anything and I figured that out.

What you need to do to get paid what you're worth is figure out what other people aren't doing and can't do, which you can do, and then sell them your services at the price they're willing to pay.

My trade involves doing things people in corporate structures don't have time to do, since they're all in meetings all day long competing socially with each other.  So I do their projects for them semi-anonymously, and billing by the project, earn several times more in a year than they do.  Having a number of clients keeps any one of them from figuring out how much I actually do earn, which is none of their business anyway.

This has nothing to do with where one lives.  I live in Minneapolis and love it, and love to hear it described as a "shithole" by people who only skim USA Today-level information.  May they stay far away, and let them never look at this area's true statistics and characteristics.

The point is, if you live in a Feudal or neo-Feudal society, you're never going to become Nobility unless you were born into it one way or another.  If you join the household of a Feudal Noble, that can be OK if you have no personal ambition and unless and until said Nobleman loses out to a rival Oligarch, in which case you go down with the ship.  

Far better to become an outside trusted procurer to an array of Oligarchs, not linked closely to any particular one.

That you could do anywhere, though it's convenient to live near a good assortment of Feudal Noble Oligarchs.  The point is that you're looking to live by your own wits and resources, not at the pleasure of a potentially fickle and unreliable Nobleman who knows the true value you provide, and will as a matter of course pay you less than that.

In reply to by ProstoDoZiemi

ProstoDoZiemi swmnguy Sun, 01/28/2018 - 03:18 Permalink

If I'm correct Minn has unemployment of about 3% being in the top 6 or 8. I had the fortune of being able to go up to the Twin Cities area a couple of times while working for a logistics company and I really liked it. On one trip, I bough a ton of groceries because so many things were much cheaper, I didn't care as it was company gas. As a European I heard a little faint Swedish accent in the people up there. 2 acquaintances that grew up in Minn mentioned only one negative ( in their eyes ), the frigid weather.

You're a bit out of luck, to my understanding the state is supposed to release commercials during the Super Bowl to sell the prospects of the great state of Minn.

You hit the nail on the head, something that I've been thinking about for some time, I often think about this when I go running or biking, but thus far I have come up empty handed. Maybe I'm thinking too hard and not visualizing the obvious.
"What you need to do to get paid what you're worth is figure out what other people aren't doing and can't do, which you can do, and then sell them your services at the price they're willing to pay. "

 

In reply to by swmnguy

pitz Sokhmate Sat, 01/27/2018 - 01:57 Permalink

Most of those 'requirements' are arbitrary, exaggerated, and completely made up.  But the alphabet soup of "requirements" allows them to plausibly reject Americans who are qualified for the jobs by simply pointing to trivial defects in their knowledge.

The same firms often will turn around and hire a H-1B at a lower rate, convincing the H-1B that they don't 'deserve' the better rate because they are deficient some of the requirements.  The H-1B, usually sub-continental, being overjoyed and thrilled not to be sent back to what T-Rump would call a 'shithole'.

In reply to by Sokhmate

swmnguy pitz Sat, 01/27/2018 - 10:52 Permalink

Many job requirements are compiled and set by HR executives.  Anybody who knows anybody in HR knows they are the most useless, skill-free people in regular employment.  They exist only because competent Management is nearly non-existent in modern American corporate structure.  HR provides a screen against lawsuits, and removes actual Managers from responsibility for their employment and management decisions.

Back when I was an employee, and a manager, HR people routinely asked me to write up job descriptions for myself and the people we needed to hire.  They had no idea what I was really doing, or what the people I managed were doing; they just knew it was very profitable so they figured they needed to get their fingers into it.  I always made the job descriptions very specific-seeming, with no actual meaning, and completely unintelligible.  And then when the HR people didn't understand what I had written, I just kept a straight face and reworded it slightly until they claimed it made sense so as not to appear foolish in front of me.

I've never gotten a job through an HR process, and as a white male without a college degree and now 51 years old and accustomed to making about 3x median household income, I never will get a job of any kind again.  Lucky for me, I'm self-employed and have a large network of people who hire me to solve their problems, outside of HR processes, as a project-specific cost.

In reply to by pitz

ReturnOfDaMac swmnguy Sat, 01/27/2018 - 12:15 Permalink

Swmnguy, you have found the true American dream.  Self-reliance is the only reliance.  When I hire, I look for folks like you every.single.time.  Problem solvers, not snowflakes, excuse makers, or people who have to be right all the damned time.  Purple, brown, black, white, yellow, penis or vagina, never ever mattered to me, you either pack the gear or you don't.  You can get along with others or you cant.  The degrees are somewhat of a screening tool and tell me whether or not your were capable at one time in your life, it does not tell what you are capable of now.  I've hired non-degree engineers several times, some where the best I've ever seen, smart thinking people.  Guys who had to quit before completing for various reasons, but packed the gear, and the gear is all that matters.  Technology changes so much now that the stuff I studied 30 years ago (other than math, device physics, and such) is now all obsolete, that's why I continually take classes to stay current.  Investing in you is the best investment you can make (besides investing in your kids).

In reply to by swmnguy

roddy6667 Sokhmate Sat, 01/27/2018 - 02:09 Permalink

A seemingly unrelated story. I know a guy who was working in CT, but his son and their family was in Florida. For Thanksgiving dinner, they set places at the table in CT for the 4 in Florida and put a laptop in front of their plates. By Skype, they all had Thanksgiving dinner together even though they were 1500 miles apart.

An IT worker like a programmer can be at a desk in Bangalore and do just as good a job as somebody in Silicon Valley, at 1/8 the cost. Desk in the next cubicle or desk on the other side of the planet, it doesn't matter. And none of the H1B paperwork.

In other words, don't plan on a shutdown of the H1B system to save American jobs. A programmer in India, college educated and with an excellent commend of the English language (better than most Americans), can live a very good life on $11,000 in a big Indian city. It takes about $85,000 to duplicate this in America. The US is a very expensive place to run a business. That's why the jobs left.

In reply to by Sokhmate

Marge N Call roddy6667 Sat, 01/27/2018 - 07:54 Permalink

A few things, just based on my personal experience:
1. H1B are going down, way down. From personal experience in the IT field, visas are MUCH harder to get now, even with close to peak employment for developers/devops in the NY and Bay Area.
2. IT/dev jobs are in very much an employees market even in the UK! in the UK (even north) dev/devops salaries are up over 35% in the past 2-3 years.

Cloud-based computing has made things more complex (while more powerful). I know everyone says it's supposed to make things easier, and it does in the right circumstances, but there is a steep learning curve for most devs. Still waiting for the culling to happen, just like in 2002, but nowhere near that yet.

In reply to by roddy6667

ReturnOfDaMac roddy6667 Sat, 01/27/2018 - 14:06 Permalink

Every word you said is true.  But there is a reason for that. Have you ever been to a big Indian city?  Would you want to live there?

THAT is why you can have a good life on $11,000.  People so often forget that civilization itself has a cost!  That is why real-estate prices are a local matter.  You can get a great house in the outskirts of Detroit, cheap!  Still lots of abandoned homes there that can be had for peanuts.  Why is it that STEM grads, who are sick of the high prices in our great cities, move there in masse and setup shop?  When you answer that you'll understand a great many things...

In reply to by roddy6667

Moving and Grooving Sokhmate Sat, 01/27/2018 - 10:13 Permalink

I've seen a lot of that too. But sometimes outrageous 'requirements' are used to prevent anyone already there from being 'promoted', better to bring in the new person (always from out of town and with no experience in whatever industry is involved) or, as you say, the ultimate outsider, the H1B.

 

OT, but at least I can post to this story. The last one rudely dissed me as unauthorized.

 

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In reply to by Sokhmate

Moving and Grooving Arrow4Truth Sat, 01/27/2018 - 10:21 Permalink

'There's no chart for never-been-employed'

 

Man, there are going to be some serious repercussions for those folks who live with mom and dad. I've seen it up close a few times. Usually one parent passes, and the other simply cuts the child loose. No gentle transition from your lifetime room in your lifetime house to a tent. Just one day, it happens.

 

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In reply to by Arrow4Truth

ProstoDoZiemi ReturnOfDaMac Sun, 01/28/2018 - 16:54 Permalink

I'm really not certain that it's bitching. I had such a difficult time gaining traction in the job market. I postponed graduation by a year in an attempt to gain an internship of sorts.... nothing. My degrees didn't land me any jobs whatsoever, they were borderline useless.

What landed me jobs that I just didn't give 2 shits for but made ok money where ones where I self taught myself skills, and those where the ones that employers bit, the bait was that I everything I knew for their job description was home cooked and nothing was trained or educated on.

Employers have this fucking imagination these days, that for an entry level position, applicants should have an internship and/or 2-3 years of experience with an array of skills that most schools don't prepare their students for and would only hone these skills in the actual market. If no one is there to provide the experience or train their employees, how are you supposed to succeed?

This ain't the 70's or 80's where you could go to a company and if they like you and you possess the basic skills, they would train and groom you into the position. Those days are long gone buddy. You either come prepared with the gear or you don't even bother applying.

In reply to by ReturnOfDaMac

adr Sat, 01/27/2018 - 00:24 Permalink

How many of those computer jobs are just shuffling bullshit back and forth?

How much time is spent preparing bullshit for meaningless meetings astounds me.

It's no wonder most publicly traded companies have to cook the books. 99% of the employees really don't do anything of value.

swmnguy adr Sat, 01/27/2018 - 10:56 Permalink

You are so correct; perhaps more so than you know.

Those employees at corporate HQ's spend, some of them, 8 hrs. per day in meetings, competing socially with one another, and have to hire contractors, free-lancers, and outside consultants to actually do their jobs.  They can't do their own jobs because they're in meetings all the time.

As long as one incorporates oneself and doesn't become a contractor or free-lancer, and remains a consultant, one can make a fine living doing the work the corporate drones can't find the time to do because the corporate management structure and model doesn't allow them to do their work.

The key is to never go in to the corporate HQ other than for the occasional meeting, and to have more than one client.  That way one can't become subsumed into the corporate structure, which is the kiss of death in all aspects.

In reply to by adr

roddy6667 Sat, 01/27/2018 - 00:41 Permalink

The first sentence of this article is reason to stop reading. "the US unemployment rate is at its lowest level in two decades."

Really. WTF? Does the author really believe this? If so, he has absolutely no credibility.

Manipuflation Sat, 01/27/2018 - 04:17 Permalink

We need new management at Walmart.  Many of you don't know the story.  I'm new management at Walmart.  I started training on Dec 4.  So much has happened already with my mess of a store that it is laughable.  I'm having a field day with this shit show but I'm making money.  Basically, I got a phone call back in November from a WMT recruiter asking if I wanted be an Asst Store Manager.  OK.  That led to three interviews and I was offered the position and that is when I found out how much WMT actually pays their management.  The compensation is way better you think.  I accept and start the training but then we had Xmas/quanzaa where I worked in the store.  Just before Christmas, our not-white female store manager from the south took a leave of absence.  I met somebody by pure serendipity who has a lawsuit against said manager and WMT and it lawyer-ed up.  Every he has told me has come true so far. 

Right after New Year, I was called to the front office wit the co-managers and was told that I need to take a drug test for reasonable suspicion.  I could deny and be terminated or go through with the test.  I chose the latter option because I was not doing anything wrong.  I was told I was suspended with pay. 

Two weeks go by and the drug test come back inconclusive.(negative)  So I am reinstated and asked if I can come back the next day.  No, I can't do that because I made all of these appointments so I made them pay for an extra day off.  I got paid for just generally fucking off.  It was unreasonable to begin with.  I could have said that I had a job interview in Idaho or something like that but I didn't go that far.  Just not cool.  To were kissing my ass after that fiasco.

Now another week later and we had one Co-manager walked out of the store this morning and the other we don't know about.  I never said a word about that drug test fail to anyone.  I was hired by corporate.  It's about more than that though.  I was told they could both be gone and the position eliminated.  That leave the rest of us in a situation where the only management left are assistant managers.  I found myself running a Walmart by myself a few times in the last week.  I don't even have full access to every system yet but I managed to do it.  I sure as hell don't know everything.  It's a business so the tenets of running a business apply.  I love the damn job and I love what it pays.  The chaos is awesome. 

I requested the store am at for a reason and I have one guy hired and I am looking for more.  It is time for a change.  You might have heard that two days ago WMT fired a shitload of people from corporate.  WMT is cleaning house.  There is management that has been taking advantage of the situation for far too long.  

My whole suspension caused me to miss the rest of my training so now I have to start all over.  That costs me money and benefits.  There is a legal issue yet.  I'll pick my battles.

Interesting that one of my fellow Assistants was a licensed securities broker for Wells Fargo but he couldn't stand it he said.  He didn't elaborate as to why other than being bored but he still talks about it.  I have to keep my eye on him.  I don't say shit about what I know.

This is the world we live in.  

I wish I would have never went to university and just started with WMT right out of high school.  I would be retired by now.  One thing I do know for sure is that you will always have customers at Walmart.  Who wants glamorous?  Merica shops at Walmart and so do you so keep the snide comments to a minimum.