The U.S. job market just had its best year for hiring in 15 years, and according to a recent report from jobs website ZipRecruiter, certain cities in the West, Midwest and Southwest are primed to be big hirers in the coming year.
ZipRecruiter identified 10 cities with the strongest job markets after examining Bureau of Labor Statistics data on the 100 biggest metro areas (by job market size) that have an unemployment rate below the national average of 5.6 percent. Combining those findings with internal data, the site was then able to rank the cities based on applications per job and applicants per employer.
Job markets in major midwestern cities like Minneapolis and Fargo, for example, have blossomed in recent years, thanks to a boom in natural gas production, ZipRecruiter found. And though hiring in the oil industry may be tapering off, other sectors of these local economies are flourishing.
As for the kinds of jobs available, ZipRecruiter found that listings for positions in health care, construction and manufacturing are particularly bountiful in cities with the strongest hiring markets.
Here’s the ranking of the best cities for hiring in 2015, according to ZipRecruiter: