Boston is the best U.S. metro area for workers, according to Indeed’s inaugural ranking of 228 metros with populations of 200,000 or more.
Several of the top-ranked areas, including Rochester, Minn., and Durham-Chapel Hill, N.C., are anchored by major health systems and academic medical centers.
Indeed’s Hiring Lab scored each metro on 40 metrics across six pillars: job opportunity, compensation, job quality and security, career mobility and dynamism, work-life and flexibility, and economic opportunity. The index draws on Indeed’s proprietary data, public sources and Glassdoor data.
“Being a good place to work goes much deeper than having the most job postings,” said Laura Ullrich, the Hiring Lab economist who led the research. “The cities that rose up to the top were places that while maybe they were stronger in some areas than others, they were relatively strong across the board.”
Here are the 25 best metro areas for work, according to Indeed:
1. Boston-Cambridge-Newton (Mass.)
2. Washington, D.C.-Arlington-Alexandria (Va.)
3. Burlington-South Burlington (Vt.)
4. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara (Calif.)
5. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont (Calif.)
6. Madison, Wis.
7. Rochester, Minn.
8. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue (Wash.)
9. Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos (Texas)
10. Charlottesville, Va.
11. Fargo, N.D.
12. Omaha, Neb.
13. Albany-Schenectady-Troy (N.Y.)
14. Cedar Rapids, Iowa
15. Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington (Minn.)
16. Ann Arbor, Mich.
17. Denver-Aurora-Centennial (Colo.)
18. Honolulu
19. Boulder, Colo.
20. Syracuse, N.Y.
21. Baltimore-Columbia-Towson (Md.)
22. Durham-Chapel Hill (N.C.)
23. Manchester-Nashua (N.H.)
24. Columbus, Ohio
25. Sioux Falls, S.D.
