Salt Lake City, Florida cities have hottest jobs market: Analysis

Salt Lake City topped the list of cities with the hottest job markets in 2023, according to a new ranking and analysis published in The Wall Street Journal this week.

The next five slots included four Florida cities: Jacksonville, Fla., placed in second, followed by Orlando, Fla.; Tampa, Fla.; Oklahoma City; and Miami.

The rankings, conducting using Moody’s Analytics analysis of Labor Department data, assessed the job markets by looking at five factors: unemployment rates, labor-force participation rates, changes to employment levels, size of labor forces and wages.

The Journal reported that the cities with the strongest job markets were also those that provided affordable alternatives to some of the major tech and financial coastal hubs and provided access to the outdoors.

Salt Lake City has a diverse economy, so even if high interest rates and layoffs affected employees in the city, the Journal indicated those workers did not have too much trouble finding new work. The Journal also noted the friendly business laws and tax incentives in the Utah city.

Florida’s cities continue to dominant the hot job markets rankings, meanwhile. In 2022, three cities placed in the top 10; in 2023, four cities made the list.

While some companies have relocated from the northeastern corridor to Jacksonville and other Florida areas, a lot of the growing popularity of the state has to do with its ability to attract remote workers who like the affordability and lack of state income tax, Adam Kamins, an economist at Moody’s Analytics, said to the Journal.