The ongoing coronavirus crisis has impacted nearly all facets of life, and one of the most difficult challenges for Americans to deal with has been the disruption to the job market, a fact that can jeopardize their hard-earned savings. While the national unemployment rate was still a substantial 11.1% in June 2020, this percentage marks a decline from previous months as people across the U.S. look for ways to adjust to the new normal and ways to stay employed. Some parts of the U.S., though, have a better chance of offering job prospects in this environment. SmartAsset analyzed data from various sources to find the metro areas in the country with the best career opportunities in the COVID-19 downturn.
To find these particular places, we looked at 200 metro areas across seven metrics: unemployment rate, change in total employment over the past year, median income, income growth, annual housing costs, number of career counselors and the number of post-secondary teachers. For details on our data sources and how we put all the information together to create our final rankings, check out the Data and Methodology section below.
College Station-Bryan, Texas kicks off SmartAsset.com's top 10. It leads the study in three different categories: income growth over time (37.22%), number of career counselors per 1,000 workers (5.87) and number of post-secondary teachers per 1,000 workers (74.92). This metro area also places third overall for its relatively small drop in total employment between May 2019 and 2020, decreasing just 3.48%.
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