When the U.S. Census Bureau reported last week that Michigan was the only state in the union to lose population from 1990 to 2000, there were plenty of long faces (and stories) there about how bad that will be for representation in Congress, federal funding and local taxes.
The Census Bureau’s decennial dump of statistics should hold special interest for careerists. It gives us some things to think about, but we need something more immediate.
Take a look at Indeed.com for more-immediate trends. Its report on city-by-city employment trends, updated in December, bore some resemblance to what the Census Bureau was saying. Top cities for job availability per capita included:
- Washington
- San Jose, Calif.
- Baltimore
- Boston
- New York
- Cleveland
- Hartford, Conn.
- Milwaukee
Except for Cleveland and Milwaukee, that list matches what the Census Bureau tells us about where things are hot. These are not news jobs, of course, but jobs in general. However, as long as newsrooms are largely dependent on advertising — whether in print or online — a healthy local job market implies good things for advertising.
The list also shows how cities are trending from the month before. The Census Bureau can’t help with that.
Strongest month-to-month improvements: Virginia Beach, Va.; Indianapolis; San Francisco; Columbus, Ohio; Rochester, N.Y.
Steepest month-to-month declines: Nashville, Tenn.; New Orleans; Salt Lake City; Pittsburgh; Oklahoma City.
Career questions? E-mail Joe for an answer.
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