Raleigh Named Best City for Jobs

NEW YORK (Feb. 17) - Raleigh, North Carolina, topped the list of the best U.S. cities for getting a job, according to an annual survey released on Friday by Forbes.com.

Among U.S. states, Florida is home to the most cities among the top 25 best spots for job opportunities, with Jacksonville at No. 3 and Orlando at No. 4 as well as Fort Lauderdale, Sarasota, Tampa and West Palm Beach, Forbes said.

Rounding out the top five cities were Phoenix in second place and Washington, D.C., in fifth place, Forbes said. The U.S. capital was No. 1 in the previous year's list.

Forbes said it compiled the list by ranking unemployment rates, job growth, income growth, median household incomes and costs of living in the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas.

Raleigh, part of the so-called "research triangle" with Durham and Chapel Hill where several major universities are located, has low unemployment, strong income and job growth, high incomes and a relatively low cost of living, Forbes said.

"There isn't much of a negative in Raleigh," said Steven Cochrane, an economist with Moody's Economy.com, which provided data for the survey.

"It has a lot of the amenities of Florida, except not the hurricanes," Cochrane said in a Forbes.com article accompanying the survey.

Many large cities fared badly. New York ranked No. 75, Chicago was No. 82, Los Angeles was No. 88 and Boston was No. 83.

Big cities have high median incomes but also tend to have unemployment, expensive housing and low job growth, Forbes said.

Most of the top ranked cities were in the Southeast and Southwest, benefiting from such factors as warm weather, land available for development, lower costs of living and business-friendly tax climates, Forbes said.