Tampa has been named one of the best cities to start a career, according to a new report from WalletHub.
The personal finance website, WalletHub compared the job market strength and overall livability of more than 180 U.S. cities to find out which American city would be the best for budding careers of college graduates.
After examining each city based on 29 metrics — that range from the availability of entry-level jobs to monthly average starting salary to workforce diversity — WalletHub named Tampa as the second best Florida city to start a career, and No. 11 overall.
Tampa garnered high scores for its professional opportunities, which included things like average starting salary, workforce diversity, annual job growth and job fairs per total people in the labor force.
“Tampa is kind of a destination point for folks looking to relocate,” said CareerSource Tampa CEO John Flanagan. When you look 20 or 30 years ago, talent used to follow the jobs, but what’s changes is a business is going to go where talent resides.”
Flanagan isn’t surprised by the ranking, noting that there are 60,000 jobs to fill in Tampa, outweighing the number of unemployed people in Hillsborough.
“We’ve got a fairly elaborate tech and finance sector so we have a lot of careers for the graduates just breaking into the labor market, Flanagan said. “Not to mention, Florida and especially Tampa, is a destination. A lot of people want to be here for various reasons.”
St. Petersburg landed at No 55 out of 182 cities on the list.
