Houston is the Best City to Start a Career

NEW YORK – May 25, 2017 – Houston is the best city to launch career, according to a new report by Bankrate.com.  The study reviewed the 50 largest metro areas in the U.S. based on several factors a young person should consider when starting their career including: the job market, potential for long-term career-building, affordability and lifestyle for recent college graduates.   Click here for more information: www.bankrate.com/cashlorette/best-cities-to-start-your-career/

Houston made the top spot on the list due to high scores earned for career potential, job market and affordability for new graduates.  The metro area’s drawback is its lower score for lifestyle, particularly in arts, entertainment and recreation. Minneapolis-St. Paul, Washington, D.C., Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas complete the top five metro areas.

“Many eager new grads think they have to head to New York or Silicon Valley to make it big,” said Sarah Berger, The Cashlorette at Bankrate.com. “There are plenty of cities that offer solid job markets and long-term career growth, without breaking the bank or sacrificing a good quality of life.”

The Riverside-San Bernardino, CA metro area is lacking when it comes to job prospects and career potential, making it the worst place to start a career.  The metro areas of Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, Florida; Sacramento, California; Memphis, Tennessee and Tampa-St. Petersburg, Florida make up the rest of the bottom five.

Methodology:

We ranked the 50 largest metro areas in the U.S. by population on a 50-point scale based on a comparative analysis across 11 factors in 4 major categories, including the job market, potential for long-term career-building, affordability and lifestyle for recent college graduates. The job market for recent college graduates was given more weight than the other factors based on interviews with experts in the field of employment and career development.

The data we used to make those rankings came from a variety of sources, including the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, The Council for Community and Economic Research, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the 2015 American Community Survey, and Gallup-Healthways.

All data used was most current available. In cases where data did not exactly conform to Census geographic categories, data for the closest available geographies was used.

About Bankrate.com

Bankrate.com provides consumers with the expert advice and tools needed to succeed throughout life’s financial journey. For over two decades, Bankrate.com has been a leading personal finance destination. The company offers award-winning editorial content, competitive rate information, and calculators and tools across multiple categories, including mortgages, deposits, credit cards, retirement, automobile loans, and taxes. Bankrate aggregates rate information from over 4,800 institutions on more than 300 financial products. With coverage of over 600 local markets, Bankrate generates rate tables in all 50 U.S. states. Bankrate develops and provides web services to more than 100 cobranded websites with online partners, including some of the most trusted and frequently visited personal finance sites on the internet, such as Comcast, Yahoo!, CNBC and Bloomberg. In addition,