A Texas tech hub and a town that bills itself as the RV capital of the world are America’s hottest job markets, according to The Wall Street Journal’s annual rankings.
The Austin, Texas, metro area—which also features University of Texas, a state capitol and lots of live music—ranked as the best labor market in 2021, among regions with at least one million people. The Elkhart, Ind., area, where Keystone RV Co. , Jayco Inc. and Newmar Corp., are located, ranked as the best job market among smaller regions.
The rankings are based on five attributes: job growth, unemployment rate, share of adults working or looking for work, change in the size of the labor force, and change in average weekly wages. Cities were scored by the highest average ranking among the five categories based on Moody’s Analytics analysis of Labor Department data.
Large cities rankings
Methodology: The Wall Street Journal’s ranking is based on five attributes: average unemployment rate in 2021; labor-force participation rate in 2021; the change in the average monthly employment and labor-force levels in 2021 from a year earlier; and the change in average weekly wages, not adjusted for inflation, in the first half of 2021 from the first half of 2020, reflecting the latest available wage data. Areas were scored by the highest average ranking among the five categories. Rankings were split between areas with under one million people and over one million people.
Source: Moody’s Analytics analysis of Labor Department data
Small cities rankings
Methodology: The Wall Street Journal’s ranking is based on five attributes: average unemployment rate in 2021; labor-force participation rate in 2021; the change in the average monthly employment and labor-force levels in 2021 from a year earlier; and the change in average weekly wages, not adjusted for inflation, in the first half of 2021 from the first half of 2020, reflecting the latest available wage data. Areas were scored by the highest average ranking among the five categories. Rankings were split between areas with under one million people and over one million people.
Source: Moody’s Analytics analysis of Labor Department data
Write to Danny Dougherty at Danny.Dougherty@wsj.com