Beyond MoCo: Howard County’s Columbia Ranked Second in “2023’s Best Places to Find a Job” List

With the unemployment rate at 3.7% and employers planning to hire 15% more new graduates from the Class of 2023 than they did from the Class of 2022, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2023’s Best Places to Find a Job, with nearby Columbia, MD (Howard County) ranked #2 on the list.

Columbia, Maryland, has the highest median annual household income (adjusted by cost of living), $104,486, which is 3.5 times higher than in Newark, New Jersey, the city with the lowest at $30,271. To determine the strongest local job markets in the U.S., WalletHub compared more than 180 cities across 32 key metrics. The data set ranges from job opportunities to employment growth to monthly average starting salary. Top 10 and bottom 10 can be seen below:

Best vs. Worst

• Columbia, Maryland, has the highest median annual household income (adjusted by cost of living), $104,486, which is 3.5 times higher than in Newark, New Jersey, the city with the lowest at $30,271.
• San Jose, California, has the highest monthly average starting salary, $7,247, which is 3.7 times higher than in Fort Smith, Arkansas, the city with the lowest at $1,975.
• Fremont, California, has the fewest part-time employees for every 100 full-time employees, 31.09, which is 3.7 times fewer than in Burlington, Vermont, the city with the most at 116.35.
• Pearl City, Hawaii, has the lowest share of workers living in poverty, 1.39 percent, which is 13.6 times lower than in Huntington, West Virginia, the city with the highest at 18.97 percent.

To view the full report and your city’s rank, please visit:
https://wallethub.com/edu/best-cities-for-jobs/2173

'