Washington DC is the Nation's Strongest Job Market

story by BusinessWeek
written by Venessa Wong

No. 1 Strongest Job Market: Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Va.-Md.-W.Va.

Who's hiring: Wholesale/retail trade, Professional & business services, Government
Companies planning to hire in Q3: 23 percent
Population: 5,476,241 (+1.8 percent YOY)
Unemployment rate: 6.2 percent
Mean annual income: $59,470

The D.C. area, which has seen its unemployment rate drop from 7.1 percent in February to 6.2 percent in May, has maintained the strongest average employment outlook this year. In Manpower's most recent report, 23 percent of survey-takers in the area planned to increase employment in the third quarter and 4 percent planned to decrease employment; a majority, 69 percent, had no plans to change employment this summer. According to the Conference Board, there were 190,800 online ads for jobs in the area in June, up 28.3 percent from a year earlier. Accenture, for example, plans to add 1,000 jobs in the D.C. area, reported the Washington Business Journal. Deloitte's Federal Practice has also hired 1,200 new employees in the D.C. metro area so far this year and plans to hire about 160 per month through the end of May 2011.

Jobs Surge in U.S. Capital

"We're a lot better off than one year ago" in terms of job availability, says Jeff Quinn, a senior director of research at Monster Worldwide. "Year-on-year there are strong, positive signs. However, we still have not regained all of the ground lost during the recession. It will take some time."

Where is hiring strongest? Businessweek.com ranked the 100 largest metropolitan statistical areas, based on Manpower's data about businesses' Q1, Q2, and Q3 hiring forecasts. So far this year, Washington has shown the strongest overall employment outlook, followed by San Antonio and Greenville, S.C. Employers display the worst employment outlook in Las Vegas, Reno, Nev., and Detroit.

In Manpower's survey, 23 percent of Washington area employers plan to increase staff levels in the third quarter, while 4 percent plan to decrease employment and 69 percent envision no change.

Washington is the only metropolitan area in which the number of advertised job vacancies in May (201,000) was greater than the number of unemployed (184,600), according to the Conference Board.