Bethesda The Best City For Finding Employment Right Now

Downtown BethesdaBethesda is the best city in the country for finding a job right now, according to a report from Forbes.com and human resources firm Adecco Staffing last week.

Adecco created the top 10 list by using Department of Labor employment statistics and their own job growth and demand data. The metropolitan areas were then rated based on diversity of industry, cost of living, range in size of companies offering employment and education levels.

Bethesda (though presumably the Bethesda-Rockville-Frederick metropolitan area as defined by the Department of Labor) came in No. 1, beating out Austin, Texas and Jacksonville, Fla. New York City came in No. 8:

The best place for finding employment right now is the Bethesda, Md. metro area, where the unemployment rate is 5.2%, as of February 2013.  That’s 2.5 percentage points lower than the national rate, which was 7.7% in February.

“Bethesda has a very low unemployment rate and has proven to be a major competitor with its highly educated job market and growth in a number of sectors including hospitality and healthcare,” [Adecco Staffing President Joyce] Russell says. “The housing market is doing well and Bethesda often appears on lists ranking most livable cities. Maryland is also ranked No. 1 in the nation for schools, which also feeds into a positive outlook in the area for employment opportunities and a great quality of life.”

The most in-demand skills in the area: Specialty trade contractors, accounting and bookkeeping, and food service and hospitality. The top hiring industries right now? Hospitality, construction, healthcare.

“The growth in construction and hospitality positions are encouraging to local manufacturing and distribution companies as they are optimistic the impact will reflect in their overall bottom-line as well,” says Lisa Imler, Adecco Staffing’s regional vice president of the Chesapeake Region.

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