There’s no need to rub your weary eyes, your calendar is correct. It is now officially 2018. That means that once you have recovered from your brutal New Year’s Eve hangover it’s time to do some serious personal reflection and make some plans in order to get on the right path this year. Just in case, we’ll label these goals as “tentative” and stay away from the dreaded “R” word (here’s a hint: it rhymes with “evolution”). We can take things one step at a time.
One aspect of your life that you can take by the reigns with the right amount of determination is your career. Sometimes finding a new job can be a soul-crushing experience. But as the good people at WalletHub found with their 2018’s Best Places to Find a Job list, your problems may be tied directly to where you live. By compiling and comparing data from 182 different cities in the U.S. with two key dimensions in mind: “job market” and “socio-economic”. They then judged these dimensions using 26 different metrics including “job opportunities”, “unemployment rate”, “median annual income”, and “average commute time” tallying a total score out of 100 possible points.
Jill Gonzalez, an analyst who helped with this report, believes that people should take this data at face value and be willing to relocate to where the work is in order to find worthwhile employment. Sometimes, you just have to let go of your comfortable and familiar neighborhood to advance your career.
“Nowadays less people are taking a chance and moving to a new city before actually securing a job there,” Gonzalez explains, “but it’s worth the risk now more than ever. 2018 is going to be a record-setting year, with unemployment reaching its lowest point in a couple of decades. Depending on the city, about a third of employers are looking to add manpower this year. If you live in an expensive city and aren’t able to live the type of lifestyle you’d like to with your current job or salary, that should be motivation enough to take the plunge this year!”
The cities that topped this year’s WalletHub list are as follows…
1. Chandler, AZ
2. Scottsdale, AZ
3. San Francisco, CA
4. Peoria, AZ
5. Gilbert, AZ
6. Plano, TX
7. Portland, ME
8. Irvine, CA
9. Madison, WI
10. Boston, MA
As we said before, there were many factors that went into their rankings and you can view all 182 cities and their positions here.
All in all, if you are looking to make a positive change in your professional life, packing your belongings might be the first step in finding a great new career. How’s that for a New Year’s resolution? Whoops, I forgot that we weren’t using that word.
