Boston is the sixth best city in the United States for job availability, according to a report released Tuesday by job recruitment site Glassdoor. The top five cities were Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, St. Louis, Missouri, Indianapolis, Indiana, Cincinnati, Ohio, and Hartford, Connecticut.
Glassdoor, which promotes transparency by giving employees a platform to write anonymous reviews about their work environments, used three criteria to generate the rankings: the ease of obtaining a job in that city, housing affordability and employee satisfaction.
Amanda Stansell, an economic research analyst at Glassdoor, wrote in an email that Boston is the top city for hiring opportunities and has benefited greatly from a growing tech industry, specifically the industry’s impact on the local economy.
“When we compare the ratio of job openings to residents, Boston stands out as the #1 city for hiring opportunities — this means that among the cities we analyzed for this report, Boston has the strongest abundance of open jobs available to residents,” Stansell wrote.
Of the top-ranked cities, Indianapolis is the only city with a larger population than Boston, with more than 863,000 residents, compared to Boston’s nearly 685,100. The other cities that ranked above Boston have significantly lower populations, not exceeding 350,000 people.
Lou Gaglini, executive director of the Boston University Center for Career Development, speculated that a city’s success may have more to do with its prominent industries instead of its size.
“I think that there are some industries that are in higher demand than others, and if they’re in great demand, and if the salaries are going higher and higher based upon the demand, that’s going to generate higher rankings,” Gaglini said. “But, I don’t think size is everything.”
Gaglini said Boston is quickly becoming a hub for entrepreneurship and new business development. He explained that the city’s many universities contribute to the growing job market and its strength.
“[Boston] has long been a home to the field of education, the field of financial services, biotechnology and life sciences, and now, Boston has become a very popular hub for entrepreneurship and new business development,” Gaglini said. “The growth has been tremendous over the years, and I’m not surprised at all to see Boston high on the list.”
Back Bay resident Katie Nolan said she moved to Boston from Chicago, Illinois, two years ago and that she thought there was an abundance of job opportunities available.
“There seems to be plenty of jobs in my industry, which is consulting, and a lot of tech startup jobs as well,” the 26-year-old said. “I think, because of all the schools here, all of the smart people that are living in the area and the research that’s being done [leads] to actually putting the research into practice and creates student jobs that way.”
Alexa Coulombe, 24, said that when she recently switched jobs, she felt she had a lot of opportunity to explore different options.
“I changed jobs about a month ago, and I think that I had a lot of chances to have interviews and find jobs that would be something I would want to do,” the Beacon Hill resident said. “I personally found that there was a lot out there, if you were willing to look for it and find it.”
Coulombe also said she thought the strong academic presence in Boston was responsible for job creation.
“I’d also say it’s a good place for people to live and work, but I also think that we have some of the best schools in the entire country here,” she said. “If you want talent, you have to go to the areas that are educating the people you want to employ.”
Dorchester resident Anthony Brown, 52, said he moved to Boston straight out of college because he has always seen the city as a hub for aspirational young people.
“Boston employers recognize the potential of Boston’s young population and give you a great deal of opportunity when you come looking,” Brown said. “It deserves the high ranking, and I think it has potential to move up even higher on that list.”
Susannah Sudborough contributed to the reporting of this story.
Indianapolis is not larger or even comparable in population as Boston. It’s a detail, but the population citation in this article is misleading context setting and analysis. Citing residents of Boston “proper” and Indianapolis proper as evidence that Indy is bigger/more populous is absurd. It’s relevant to the survey results and the framing of the results. Boston metro area is at least 2x as large as Indy (according to one source I found in a single google search is below).
It’s misleading because in Boston a smaller % of the population of the greater Metropolitan area lives in the city proper. Proper residents / Metro population = approx 14% in Boston. For Indy, it’s closer to 43%.
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_metropolitan_areas_by_population