What are the best (and worst) cities for job creation right now? A new Gallup poll found Houston is the top job-creating city, with a whopping 45 percent of companies currently hiring.
Columbus, Ohio; Orlando, Fla.; Charlotte, N.C.; and Salt Lake City, Utah, rounded out the top five. The cities with the least amount of hiring were Riverside, Calif.; San Diego; New York; Jacksonville, Fla.; and Buffalo, N.Y., had the five lowest Job Creation Index scores–but even in those cities, respondents reported that employers were hiring. For example, in Riverside, 21 percent of companies were laying people off, but 32 percent were hiring.
Nationwide, 35 percent of workers reported their employers were hiring, compared with 17 percent who were letting workers go. A positive sign for the U.S. economy, Gallup says, is that most large metropolitan areas showed improvement in their hiring situations in 2012 compared with 2011–but Gallup notes that until hiring improves substantially in the largest metro areas, Americans aren’t likely to feel that the recession is really at an end.
