Manufacturing may be perceived as a dying industry, but a growing number of cities across the United States are finding just the opposite to be true. From former manufacturing strongholds in the Rust Belt to up-and-coming West Coast hubs, some of the most unexpected places are experiencing an industrial renaissance.

Though the economy will never recoup the 3 million industrial jobs lost since the recession, it has added more than 330,000 over the past three years. Not only is this manufacturing resurgence revitalizing production-based business throughout these regions, it’s also bolstering local economies and creating ripples of growth across other industries as well.

Manufacturing boomtowns might seem like a thing of the past, but they’re very much a present — and future — reality, according to economist Joel Kotkin. Cities with the strongest manufacturing growth right now also happen to be ones creating the most jobs overall, notes Kotkin in a recent post on his NewGeography blog.

Where is manufacturing flourishing today — and why? To answer this, Kotkin looks at momentum and employment in the industry over the past two, five and 10 years to determine which cities are creating the most manufacturing jobs.

Manufacturing Grows in Energy-Rich Regions
Energy is the primary engine behind the biggest gains in manufacturing employment, according to Kotkin’s analysis. This is particularly true in the Houston-Sugarland-Baytown, Texas. area, which ranked No. 1 among manufacturing boomtowns.

Home to many oil companies with operations not only in Texas but also in other shale-rich regions across the U.S., Houston’s energy sector is driving growth in metal fabrication, machinery and chemicals. Its industrial employment, which has grown three times as fast as the overall U.S. economy, is also creating jobs in construction and professional and business services, among other sectors.

Energy-driven industrial jobs are also fueling growth in Oklahoma City, which ranks No. 4 on the list, as well as smaller metros such as Lafayette, La. and Baton Rouge, La., Tulsa, Anchorage, Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas and Bakersfield-Delano, Calif.

Auto Industry Comeback
Recovery in the auto industry, especially in the Great Lakes Region, has been another driving force in the revival of U.S. manufacturing. After years of decline in production due to quality and reliability issues, automakers in the Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, Mich., region are regaining their dominance, thanks to a renewed focus on customer service. The resurgence of manufacturing in the factory stronghold — ranked No. 8 on the manufacturing boomtowns list — is also spurring high-tech employment growth across Michigan.

Another Michigan metro, the Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills area, is seeing double-digit growth in its industrial employment, thanks to its successful transition to automated, high-tech production. More growth is expected in the area, which ranks No. 5 on the list and already has a reputation as “automation alley.”

Further south, investment by foreign-based auto firms and their U.S. suppliers is boosting industrial employment in locations like Louisville-Jefferson County, Ky. (No. 2 on Kotkin’s list) and Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, Tenn. (No. 6). Diverse production in everything from autos to fabricated metals is fueling manufacturing job growth in Virginia Beach, which ranks No. 7 on the list, as well as mid-sized and smaller metros throughout the Southeast.

The Western Edge
Perhaps one of the most surprising new hot spots for manufacturing is emerging in the western half of the United States. Ranking No. 3 on the manufacturing boomtowns list is the Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, Wash. area. Along with Microsoft, Amazon and Starbucks, Seattle is also the birthplace of Boeing, which has its primary manufacturing facility there. Overall, growth in Seattle’s energy and aerospace industry has propelled manufacturing employment by 13 percent since 2009.

Washington’s low energy costs are also attracting manufacturers specializing in everything from metals to food processing to the state, especially in smaller cities such as Kennewick-Pasco-Richland and Wenatchee. Its neighbor, Utah, is also gaining clout as a thriving industrial center, especially in Salt Lake City, where technology-driven manufacturing is on the rise. Utah’s capital city, which ranks No. 10 on Kotkin’s list, is home to an Intel-Micron flash memory plant, along with growing aerospace and recreational sports equipment industries.

Have you seen a resurgence of manufacturing in your region? What factors have helped fuel its revitalization and growth? What competitive advantages must cities offer to keep production thriving in their communities? Please share your thoughts below.

The post Pockets of Production: Cities Where Manufacturing Is Booming appeared first on BusinessClimate.com Blog.

It used to be that dads took their young sons out in the backyard to work on their fastball in hopes their offspring might earn a chance at the Big Leagues. Dad might better spend his time these days quizzing junior on the difference in the effectiveness of nitrous oxide and isoflurane. A new study shows the highest-paying jobs in the United States are overwhelmingly in health-care occupations, led by anesthesiologists and surgeons.

Using U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, a bizjournals.com analysis found that nine of the top 10 highest-paying jobs were in health and medicine. (No. 10 was CEO – no word on whether that covers CEOs of health-care companies.) In  fact, 15 of the top 20 top income jobs are in health care. Aside from CEO, you have to get to the lowly petroleum engineer (average salary $147,000) before finding a non-health occupation among the highest-paying jobs.

The top five highest-paying jobs based on average annual pay:

1. Anesthesiologists: $232,830
2. Surgeons: $230,540
3. Ob-Gyn: $216,760
4. Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons: $216,440
5. Internists: $191,520

Health-care occupations are at the top of the list everywhere from tech-centric locations like San Jose and Seattle to manufacturing heavy metros like Detroit to banking centers like Charlotte to energy capitals like Houston.

As of April 2013, more than 14.5 million were employed in the U.S. health-care sector, including 4.83 million who work at hospitals. The sector added more than 240,000 jobs in that time, and no doubt health care is a major economic and job-creating force.

Pursuing ‘Eds and Meds’

The meds part of the “eds and meds” economic development strategy has been a success in many places. In Buffalo, the Roswell Park Cancer Institute and a major health-care system are anchoring the development of a burgeoning medical corridor in the city’s downtown that will soon include the University at Buffalo medical school.

Cleveland has built a significant health-care cluster aided in part by the specialized expertise developed at The Cleveland Clinic, which brought thousands of patients outside the region to Cleveland. Down the road in Akron,  the presence of two major hospital systems and the renowned Akron Children’s Hospital is the foundation for a biomedical corridor now under development that is expected to create 3,000 jobs.

The 11-county Greater Philadelphia region is home nearly 200 hospitals, more than 15 major health systems, five children’s hospitals and six medical schools. Fourteen of the region’s top 50 employers are health-care and hospital systems, each employing at least 5,000 people.

Nashville is known for its storied music industry heritage, but it has developed a globally recognized reputation as a center of health care. More than 250 health-care companies, including for-profit hospital pioneer HCA, are based there. Vanderbilt University, which includes renowned health-care and medical research facility Vanderbilt University Medical Center, is the largest private employer in Nashville.

No industry is immune from tumult, of course. The impact of health-care reform on the industry remains to be seen, as does its impact on the highest-paying jobs. In the here and now, though, health care remains a lucrative field and a key component in any community’s economy.

Is leveraging your region’s health-care assets part of your economic development strategy? Is pursuing “eds and meds” a worthwhile proposition? What do communities need to think about if they plan to? Share your thoughts.

The post Highest-Paying Jobs: Wealth Equals Health appeared first on BusinessClimate.com Blog.

Good news for the U.S. manufacturing industry: Optimism is up among workers — in fact, it’s higher than it’s been in four years. Despite a slight dip during the first part of the year due to concerns over taxes and the federal sequester, worker confidence has peaked for the first time since the recession, according to the Randstad Manufacturing Employee Confidence Index.

While the upswing in confidence has been gradual over the past few years as the economy has improved, several recent factors have contributed to the boost.

Manufacturers are starting to regain their losses from the economic downturn and invest again. The latest manufacturing performance figures from the Institute for Supply Management reinforce this, showing a 6 percent increase in production capacity, a 9 percent increase in capital expenditures and a 2 percent increase in raw materials prices for the rest of the year. Revenues among manufacturers are also expected to rise by 4 percent.

Consumer spending, which drives about 70 percent of the economy, has also reached its highest levels in two years, according to ISM, further fueling production growth. The increased investment among manufacturers is spurring modest job growth – another reason production workers feel more positive about their employment prospects and job security.

Reshoring Bolsters Confidence
Another source of confidence among workers: reshoring. The small but growing ranks of U.S. companies bringing production back home is also adding to the growth and demand for manufacturing workers, especially in automotive, supply chain and advanced manufacturing fields. Employees with technical skills, particularly production specialists, are in the highest demand.

Reshoring has bolstered the spirits of manufacturing workers, but it’s done more to improve their perception of opportunity in the field than it has add to their actual job prospects. Even with the reshoring boost, hiring among manufacturers has yet to reach or even come close to post-recession levels. Price competition continues to keep margins tight for companies, so most are focused on increasing productivity in their current workforce rather than growing their ranks.

“Labor is the most expensive part of operating costs,” economist Bernard Baumohl told Industry Market Trends. “Companies are doing more with less.”

Innovation Drives Opportunity
In some respects, the push for productivity is boosting the overall perception of manufacturing because it is creating more opportunity for higher-skilled jobs in the field, even as the lower-skilled positions fade away. Software developers, for example, represent one of the fastest growing positions in manufacturing today, according to Randstad regional vice president Kimberly Brown.

“Technology is really driving the resurgence in our sector, and software that bridges the virtual environment and the real world promises to streamline and bring efficiencies to the manufacturing process and boost productivity,” Brown told the trade magazine Plant Engineering.

More and more manufacturing jobs are becoming part of the knowledge economy — and that shift is necessary for the industry to remain globally competitive, said Mark Tomlinson, executive director and CEO of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers.

“If America is to compete with low-waged countries, we must innovate ways to make things more cost effectively than the labor-heavy products that have been outsourced for the last two decades,” Tomlinson wrote in a recent Huffington Post blog on the future of manufacturing.

For workers to take full advantage of new opportunities in manufacturing, they must make sure they have the skills necessary to be part of this innovative culture. Workers need to be able to be able to design parts and equipment as well as manage, program and repair high-tech machines.

Hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs currently remain vacant because candidates don’t have these skills. That’s why STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) programs are becoming a vital part of workforce development because it gives future workers the foundation to master highly technical jobs.

How can communities better prepare workers for the skills they need to thrive in the manufacturing jobs of today and tomorrow? Please share your thoughts below.

The post A Shot of Optimism: Production Worker Confidence Hits a New High appeared first on BusinessClimate.com Blog.

In achieving CEO magazine’s Best States for Business title, it matters less who you know and more about what they think. And if you’re in a state south of the Mason-Dixon line, the odds are a lot higher that a corporate honcho feels better about you than a lot of other locations.

Eight of 10 states on the 2013 Best States for Business, which asks C-level decision makers to  evaluate states based on business tax policies, regulation, workforce quality and livability factors, are in the Southeast or Southwest.

The next four states – Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee and Indiana – retained the exact order of ranking as they did in 2012. As did four of the bottom five – Massachusetts, Illinois, New York and California.

Consider this comment to CEO from Pete Offermann, who runs  Cellotape, a $20 million printing business in Fremont, Calif., and has extensive business experience in the Northeast. “On any particular element, if New Jersey is an ‘8’ on the pain-in-the-ass scale, California is a ‘9,’” says Offermann “It’s an ungovernable state, and there’s no movement that will change that, though there are people who want to.”

That type of promotion, money can’t buy.

Not the Best States for Business, But the Worst?

Do the static results at the top and bottom of the list suggest ingrained perceptions of doing business in those states? In other words, is the perception reality? Some of the numbers for the states at the bottom of the list would say so.

California’s unemployment rate at the end of 2012 was a full two points higher than the national average and it has a net outward migration of nearly 1.5 million people between 2001 and 2009. The only state losing more people in that span was New York, where the jobless rate was also above the national average at the end of 2012 and its GDP grew slower than the national average.

The numbers, though, tell only part of the story. And while a good number of CEOs say the business climates in those states are lousy, there’s still plenty of business happening there. Two California metros, San Jose and San Francisco, were among the top 10 job gainers in 2012 and the state is still the epicenter of technology innovation. San Jose, which topped the Milken Institute Best-Performing Cities index in 2012, was also recognized by Bloomberg as one of 12 top U.S. boomtowns.

Illinois may not have gotten raves from CEO‘s survey respondents, but the state added nearly 106,000 jobs between the end of 2011 and the end of 2012. It has a $670 billion economy that stretches from clean energy to technology to life sciences, agriculture and advanced manufacturing and would put in the top 20 in the world if if were a standalone country (take that,  Indonesia, the Netherlands and Turkey!) And if the opinion of CEOs outside the U.S. counts, Illinois has more than 251,000 jobs connected to foreign direct investment, fifth-best among states.

New Jersey has made a concerted effort to rid itself of its “pain in the ass” reputation for business.  The state finished 2012 with 48,000 more jobs than it had in 2011. Under Gov. Chris Christie, the state created a coordinated and concerted effort to attract investment and create jobs, a major part of which was a red-tape cutting initiative to make New Jersey friendlier for business.

In 2012, Business Facilities recognized the state’s effort with its inaugural Achievement in Reorganization of Economic Development Award. Does that recognition cancel the perception of 736 CEOs? No, but it does lend some additional perspective. What might be the “worst” climate for some can still be a suitable climate for others and an even better environment when governments  are willing to confront the issues that shape those perceptions.

How do you rate your state as a place to do business? What are the top three things that work in your favor and what are the top three things you’d change to improve its business climate? Share your thoughts.

The post Best States for Business: How Much Do Perceptions Count? appeared first on BusinessClimate.com Blog.

The Made in America label just keeps getting more valuable. As American-made products become more visible on store shelves, the number of manufacturers announcing plans to bring production back home continues to grow, according to a recent report by Reuters. FoxConn Technology Group is the latest to announce its intention to produce in the United States. The Taiwanese firm, best known for building many of Apple’s products, will make computerized glasses for Google in Santa Clara, Calif.

Apple itself has stated plans to spend $100 million to build one of its Mac lines in the U.S. Joining it are other manufacturing giants, including Ford Motor Company, Coleman Company and Master Lock Company, all of whom have verbally committed to reshoring a portion of production to the U.S.

“We are looking at doing more manufacturing in the U.S. because, in general, customers want more to be done there,” a Foxconn spokesman told Bloomberg recently.

Adding momentum to this growing consumer demand is the world’s largest retailer, Walmart, which announced plans early this year to spend an additional $50 billion over the next decade on American-made merchandise, particularly for goods produced overseas such as textiles, furniture, toys and higher-end appliances.

For consumers, buying American is often a show of patriotism. Many shoppers view it as a small but significant way to help boost jobs and the economy. For corporations, making products in the U.S. isn’t necessarily tied to patriotism — it’s more about cost and supply-chain convenience.

Cost, Convenience and Quality
In the past, American-made products were often more expensive than foreign-made goods because of higher labor costs in the U.S. No longer is this the case. With production, labor and shipping costs rising in China and other overseas manufacturing centers, businesses are discovering that it makes more financial sense to produce goods at home.

Many companies originally moved production offshore based on unit prices, according to Harry Moser, founder and president of the Chicago-based Reshoring Initiative, who recently spoke at the Texas Reshoring Conference 2013 sponsored by the University of Texas at San Antonio. When corporations tally the costs of shipping, inventory time, quality issues and exchange-rate risks, many find the price of overseas production to be too high, Moser told the San Antonio Express-News.

Even in Mexico, which often competes with the U.S. for manufacturing projects, Made in America brands are becoming sought-after items due to what locals perceive as higher quality, ABC News reports. American-made cars like the Ford Escape are the most popular, but so are products like Tide detergent, Reynolds Wrap, WD40 and, ironically, Tabasco sauce.

How does a Made in America label influence what products you buy? Should more companies make their products at home? Why or why not? Please share your thoughts below.

The post Brand Recognition: Made in America Label Builds Value, Manufacturers Take Notice appeared first on BusinessClimate.com Blog.

To put a geographic exclamation point on the the 2012 Milken Best-Performing Cities and Bloomberg’s Top 12 American Boomtowns confirmation of metros in the South and Southwest as centers of significant job growth, we give you newly released employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The BLS this week released average employment numbers for 2012 for all 50 states and select metro across a range of industries. Among the 50 largest U.S. metros with the greatest percentage increase in jobs from 2011 to 2012, six of the top 10 are in the South or the Southwest, including the trio of Texas darlings – Houston, Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth.

Here’s the top 10, ranked by percentage increase from 2011 in employees on nonfarm payrolls:

Nashville: 3.9%
Houston: 3.8%
Austin: 3.5%
Salt Lake City: 3.4%
San Jose: 3.3%
San Francisco: 3.2%
Charlotte: 3.1%
Raleigh: 3.0%
Dallas-Fort Worth: 2.9%
Indianapolis: 2.8%

Energy, Technology Spark Job Growth in Metros

As the Boomtowns list and the Milken Institute ranking shows, metros with strong links to technology and energy are growing jobs at a faster clip than most. San Jose and San Francisco, the epicenter of California’s technology innovation, together added 86,000 jobs in 2012, just 12,000 fewer than Los Angeles, whose metro population is more than double the size of both of them combined.

Texas is a player in both energy and information technology. The Lone Star State added 303,000 jobs in 2012, according to the BLS, more than 211,000 of them in Austin (technology), Houston (energy) or Dallas-Fort Worth (both). Salt Lake City, which has a growing concentration of computer system, software design, medical device and biotech companies, added 21,000 jobs in 2012.

The North Carolina powerhouses of Charlotte and Raleigh combined to add 40,000 jobs in 2012. Raleigh has long had major bona fides as a center of innovation, with the research heavyweights of Duke, North Carolina and North Carolina State in the region. Charlotte, the No. 2 center of banking in the United States, is making a name for itself with a growing energy technology sector that now employs more than 28,000 workers.

At the top of the charts for 2012 was Nashville, a region not known for either its energy industry or technology sector. But Nashville is innovative on a number of fronts, attracting musicians across a range of genres and the creative types Richard Florida loves. Nashville is also a colossus in health care – home base for everything from major for-profit hospitals to surgery center chains to health-care information technology companies. It is also in the heart of Tennessee’s revved up automotive industry and includes major assembly operations for Nissan and General Motors.

The momentum was not as positive in some other parts of the country. Eight metros had job growth rates of less than 1 percent in 2012. St. Louis, in raw numbers, added just 100 jobs. Other metros with tepid growth included Buffalo (0.6%), Providence (0.6%), Milwaukee (0.7%) and Philadelphia (0.7%).

How did your metro fare? What’s driving job creation in your region and how is your community leveraging its key industries to promote more growth? Share your thoughts.

The post Southern Accents: Job Growth in Metro Regions appeared first on BusinessClimate.com Blog.

From the plains of Oklahoma to coastal Carolina, the southern half of the United States is where some of the fastest growth in the country is occurring, according to two recently released lists ranking the top cities in the nation for population and economic activity.

Nine of the cities on Bloomberg’s list of Top 12 American Boomtowns were Southern metros, including a whopping four from Texas. Though not as dominant on the Milken Institute’s Best-Performing Cities list for 2012, cities in the South accounted for five of the top 10 — three of which were Texas towns.

The Austin-Round Rock, Texas area ranked at the top of both lists. With the city’s growing reputation as a center for high-tech knowledge (and jobs), entrepreneurship is booming in the Lone Star capital, along with investment by tech giants like Samsung, Facebook, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Apple and Google. Home to the Dell Inc. headquarters and the wildly popular South by Southwest festival, the area of 1.8 million has grown its population by 11.6 percent since 2007 and expects to generate about 25,000 new jobs in 2013.

Texas Takes the Lead
Other Texas cities looming large on both lists include the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown area and the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington area. Though much of the success of both metros is due to the thriving oil and gas industry (in Houston, especially), it’s not the only factor. Houston has NASA’s Johnson Space Center, along with one of the country’s largest concentrations of IT workers and software engineers. Dallas has diverse employment opportunities, from finance to technology jobs, combined with a low cost of living that attract many.

Also experiencing tremendous growth is the smaller city of San Antonio, which ranked fourth on Bloomberg’s Boomtown list. Its rising star is fueled by an oil and gas drilling boom in the region’s Eagle Ford Shale formation, as well as a strong defense sector and burgeoning tech scene.

The Carolina Connection
Several cities in the Carolinas are also growing in population and economic prominence. The Raleigh-Cary, N.C. metro ranked third on both lists. Home to the reputable Research Triangle Park, the city employs about 40,000 people in tech-based jobs, and its top employers include heavyweights like IBM, Cisco Systems Inc. and Lockheed Martin Corp. With a population growth of 11 percent since 2007, this city of 1.2 million has shown success at not only retaining talent, but also attracting it from around the globe.

Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord N.C. also showed strong, ranking tenth on Bloomberg’s Boomtown list. The city’s banking industry has fueled its steady population growth, which topped 2.3 million in 2012, but it’s also gotten a boost from its international airport, which serves as the largest hub for US Airways and is the sixth busiest airport in the nation. Also contributing to the city’s growth is the influx of international firms choosing to do business there, including German manufacturer Siemens AG, which builds turbines in the area.

The South Carolina metro area of Charleston-North Charleston-Summerville ranked ninth on the Milken list. Not only does the city have a strong advanced manufacturing heritage that has evolved to include automotive and aerospace production, it also boasts a wealth of knowledge-based workers in fields such as biotechnology and energy technology.

Other Southern cities to take top spots on Bloomberg’s Boomtown list included New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner, La. (No. 2), Oklahoma City, Okla. (No. 7) and Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, TN (No. 8).

What’s your take on these lists? Do you see any trends behind the rankings? What key factors do growing cities like these have in common? Please share your thoughts below.

The post Rising Stars: Southern Cities Lead in Population, Economic Growth appeared first on BusinessClimate.com Blog.

Dean Barber, who has experience both as a corporate location consultant and an economic development professional, is all in on how the manufacturing sector can build wealth in a community:

“Parents and educators also hold some misperceptions on manufacturing – believing that it offers only dirty, potentially dangerous and dead-end jobs. Nothing could be farther from the truth,” Barber wrote in a recent post on his highly insightful barberbiz blog.

But while he recognizes the opportunities it can offer, he is not entirely sold on the resurgence of the U.S. manufacturing sector and he notes we have a lot of work to do from a policy standpoint and a workforce development standpoint to improve the odds for domestic production.

While U.S factories have added more than 500,000 jobs in the United States since early 2010, he notes, the manufacturing sector lost nearly 5.7 million jobs from 2000 to 2010 and U.S. companies are still operating at a 20 percent cost disadvantage. Still, Barber sees incredible opportunities the manufacturing sector in energy-related development, exploiting the energy cost advantage the U.S. now enjoys.

More of Dean Barber’s insights on the state of the manufacturing sector and what needs to happen for it to make a true comeback can be found in A Tale of Two Cities (Three, Actually).

The post Another View: Manufacturing Sector Still Not Out of the Woods appeared first on BusinessClimate.com Blog.

Where are the best cities for jobs right now? According to a recent report by human resources firm Adecco Staffing U.S., several Sunbelt cities offer the best prospects for job seekers, but a couple of Rust Belt and East Coast metros, along with one West Coast stronghold, also hold potential.

The firm looked at cities with the fullest employment, based on Department of Labor statistics, as well as its own data on job growth and demand to evaluate the best areas for finding a job. The rankings reflected more than just healthy employment numbers. They also considered factors such as diversity of industries and the range in size of companies offering employment, the level of educational attainment among the workforce, and the cost of living.

Among the top 10 cities on the list, the report found a growing demand among service-related sectors such as health care, technology, and business and professional services. Tech startups and advanced manufacturing were also signature parts of the business landscape in many of these locations.

“When companies move their headquarters to a new city, it’s a time of hope and opportunity for job seekers,” Adecco Staffing U.S. president Joyce Russell told Forbes magazine. “These cities offer a well-educated and skilled workforce, which make them attractive to companies seeking to expand or change locations.”

Growing Industries, Livable Cities and Lots of Talent
Bethesda, Md., took the top spot, thanks to growth in its hospitality, construction and health-care sectors, as well as its highly educated job market, which makes it a top competitor for industry. The city is also known for its affordable housing, exceptional schools and livability, adding to its appeal for job seekers.

Austin, Texas, the center of a burgeoning tech market, came in second. Home to the University of Texas and many other higher-education institutions, the city has evolved into more than just a college town, making a name for itself in health-care support as well as software development and gaming technology. Its deep pool of talent allows companies to recruit candidates locally, and its increasingly hip and proudly diverse art, music and cultural scene make it a coveted place to live.

Another Sunbelt city, Jacksonville, Fla., ranked third for a sought-after job market that includes a mix of profitable traditional industries, such as higher education, health care, food services, defense, and transportation and logistics, along with a slew of new locations for finance and manufacturing companies and IT firms to serve them.

Other cities that made the report’s top 10 included the Rust Belt cities of Grand Rapids, Mich. (No. 4) and Columbus, Ohio (No. 5). Seattle, Wash., was the only West Coast city to make the list, ranking sixth. Two other Sunbelt cities, Phoenix, Ariz., and Oklahoma City, Okla., took the No. 7 and No. 10 spots. And despite its high cost of living, New York, N.Y. ranked eighth due to its wealth of opportunity for job seekers across various sectors and skill levels, as did East Coast hub Richmond, Va.

Are there any other cities you would include on this list? Why? What factors, along with job growth, make a location attractive for job seekers? Please share your thoughts below.

The post Now Hiring: Best Cities for Jobs Offer Good Opportunity, Livability appeared first on BusinessClimate.com Blog.

Housing affordability is an attribute many communities actively extol, though it can be an attribute that underscores less positive aspects such as lack of job creation, population loss and stagnant incomes. On the flip side, communities where jobs are in abundance and demand for workers is high often have a dearth of affordable housing, making it more difficult to attract both talent and investment.

That brings us to the 2013 version of Demographia’s International Housing Affordability Survey, which analyzes data from 337 metropolitan markets in the United States, Canada and five other countries using a formula that divides a region’s median home prices by median household income before taxes.

The ranking classifies communities into four housing affordability categories: affordable, moderately unaffordable, seriously unaffordable and severely unaffordable. A metro where median home prices are under three times median household income is considered to be affordable.

Among large metros, the ranking lists the top U.S. markets for housing affordability as:

1. Detroit
2. Atlanta
3. Rochester
St. Louis
Cincinnati
6. Jacksonville
Indianapolis
Cleveland
9. Columbus
Kansas City
Memphis
Pittsburgh

Outside the large metros, the U.S. communities with the most affordable housing were: Evansville, IN; Las Cruces, NM; Flint, MI; Lansing, MI; Lubbock, TX; Toledo, OH; and Youngstown, OH.

Housing Affordability, Limited Job Opportunities

Is a community’s place on the ranking a glass half full or glass half empty proposition? Though the domestic automotive industry has certainly rebounded from its near implosion in 2008, Detroit remains an area with profound economic challenges that the most affordable housing market in the United States does little to help, no matter how it’s spun. The Motor City lost more than 126,000 jobs between the end of 2007 and the end of 2012.

Detroit, of course, is not alone in job loss. In fact, only two of the major metros – Pittsburgh and Columbus – had more jobs at the end of last year than they did in November 2007, before the Great Recession took root.

On the other end of the equation, severe housing affordability issues are not necessarily a damper for economic vitality. San Jose, one of five California markets with the highest housing price to household income multiples in the United States, added more than 6,600 jobs in that same five-year span.

In the sweet spot are a number of communities where rapid job growth and income growth has not been overrun by rapid inflation in housing. Two major metro markets in Texas – Houston and Dallas-Forth Worth – added more than 150,000 jobs between the end of 2007 and the end of 2012, but still maintained housing cost to median household income multipliers of 3.0 or less.

A number of factors drive investment and job growth, from the cost of labor to transportation and logistics assets to access to research facilities and higher education institutions. And increasingly, being able to attract the right type of talent is a key differentiator for communities attempting to lure knowledge-based investment. Among the major considerations for that talent is quality of life, housing affordability and opportunities primary among them.

That cost driver is helping to boost the fortunes of places like Austin, Raleigh, Columbus and Salt Lake City that, though they have multiples above the U.S. average, are offering opportunities for younger workers and are still within the range of affordability for housing.

Where does your community rate for housing affordability? How strong a factor is cost of living, including home prices, in your economic development pitch? How do you position the cost of housing and the cost of living as an advantage in your market? Share your thoughts.

Related posts:

Downtown Urban Revitalization Efforts Target Young Professionals
Best Places to Live Cities Attract People Based on Logistics, Aspiration

The post A Good Intersection: Housing Affordability and Job Creation appeared first on BusinessClimate.com Blog.