10 Hardest Cities to Find a Job in 2016

Today we present you 10 hardest cities to find a job in 2016, places anyone who is searching for a job should avoid. Half of listed cities have unemployment rates above the national average of 4.9; two cities recorded job growth less than one percent while the smallest hourly wage among listed places was $21.34.

In our previous ranking 10 easiest cities to find a job in 2016 we presented the latest report form the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which shows that US economy has been steadily recovering from the recession. Number of new job openings peaked in 2015, the ratio between unemployed people and available jobs declined to 1.4 while separations are near pre-recession levels. Today’s ranking shows the other side of the US job market.

FEMA/ Michael Raphael

High unemployment in listed areas is not a result of negative job growth but the fact that millions of positions which were lost during the recession cannot be reclaimed at faster rates. Unemployment rate movements in California, the state in which three of ranked cities are located, reflect the struggles of US economy to overcome the effects of the recession. In pre-recession 2006, the state’s unemployment rate was 4.9. During the next four years, it sharply raised reaching a historical high of 12.4 in 2010. Since then the percent of people out of work steadily declined and at the end of 2015, 5.8 percent of working-age Californians did not have a job. Although state’s unemployment rate is still above the national average, it is significantly lower compared to recessional years. During last year around 180,000 new positions were added to the California job market, while only one sector, mining and logging, recorded negative employment growth by losing 9,600 jobs.

In creating the list of 10 easiest cities to find a job in 2016, we used rankings made by Indeed and WalletHub. Indeed, which gathers job postings from 1000’s websites, made a list of 50 US cities with the highest number of job openings per capita, while WalletHub based its ranking of job markets using 8 different criteria, including employment growth and opportunities, unemployment rate, industry variety and so on. We found most populous cities that appear on both lists and listed them by average ranking. We also present you each city’s unemployment rate and job growth (data taken from the  BLS) and average hourly wage for December 2015.