Land

To Detect Job Magnets, Follow Job Opportunity Scorecards

Which top 10 states rankings for job seekers will win out in predicting where young people match up with career opportunity?

John McManus June 15th, 2021

Oddly, through one lens, one of the fast-growing and increasingly "open" economy's biggest challenges is finding people to fill one of America's swelling stream of job openings.

Through another, that's not the reality. Rather, if you're looking for a job, it's not so easy to land one that matches up to skills, experience, salary needs, and other criteria important ones on the hunt.

Current unemployment rates pushing 6% mean mismatches are everywhere – exacerbated by supply chain disruption, which has thrown a wrench into operational and headcount investment while channels are blocked – which means that while many industries are struggling with labor shortages, many people are struggling to find suitable employment opportunity.

Annually, financial site WalletHub runs 35 economic key performance indicators through an algorithm that, it says, enable it to score the 50 states by how well they align with job searchers' employment opportunity.

Here's how the 2021 measures roll up, first from city-level analysis, to a Top 10 rankings for best states to find a job.

Source: WalletHub

Of course, WalletHub's algorithm is not sacrosanct, nor is it the only rankings of states for employment prospectors.

Best College Reviews, here, claims that its analysis of local economic inputs at a state level reveal a materially different top 10 list for what it calls "future job growth."

  1. North Dakota
  2. Texas
  3. Florida
  4. New York
  5. Nebraska
  6. Arizona
  7. South Dakota
  8. Utah
  9. Washington
  10. Pennsylvania

Join the conversation

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John McManus

John McManus

President and Founder

John McManus, founder and president of The Builder’s Daily, is an award-winning editorial, programming, and digital content strategist. TBD's purpose is a community capable of constant improvement.

RELATED

Oversupply or Overreaction? DFW Market Needs To Hit Reset

Scott Finfer breaks down the DFW-area oversupply crisis: post-pandemic assumptions, slower job growth, and mispriced inventory. Across the U.S., high-volume markets face similar risks. Finfer outlines five strategic moves to cut through the noise — and seize ground as bigger players pull back.


Land, Capital, And Control — A New Playbook In Homebuilding

Five Point Holdings’ acquisition of a controlling stake in Hearthstone points to the direction of homebuilding strategy: toward lighter land positions, more agile capital flows, and a far more disciplined focus on vertical construction, consumer targeting, and time-to-market velocity.


Engineering The Path To Better, Faster Growth Amid 2025's Stall

Local resistance, rising fees, and long entitlement windows are locking up growth. This analysis shows how smart financial planning unlocks new possibilities.