Looking for work? Avoid the Northeast. By Kathleen Madigan September 4, 2013_http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/09/04/vital-signs-northeast-lags-in-job-demand_
Jobseekers have a better chance of landing employment in areas with a greater demand for labor. Bright.com, an aggregator of job postings and resumes, calculated which cities had the most job openings per population in August. The website found the highest ratios were in the Midwest and South, with a smattering of better job markets in the West (including the No. 1 Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Washington, area which had 168.44 job openings posted per 10,000 residents).
In Bright.com’s tally, no city in the Northeast cracked the Top Ten. In fact, the first Northeast area is Albany-Schenectady, New York, at No. 29.
The recovery in housing is good news for job-seekers. Rising home values and a greater number of buyers should make it easier for unemployed homeowners to sell their homes and move to find work. Greater mobility, in turn, should lift job growth.
Friday’s employment report, however, is expected to show August was another month of moderate hiring. The median forecast of economist calls for a job gain of 175,000. Using its job-opening data, Bright.com estimates a stronger 192,000 added jobs, but that’s still modest by historical standards.
