A recent ranking by Moody’s and Brookings reported the employment changes in the nation’s 100 largest metro areas. We took a look at hiring demand over the past 90 days in their top 10 locations.

Moody's and Brookings Top 10 Metropolitan Areas for Employment

Source: Brookings.edu

 

Employers and recruiting agencies at these 10 metropolitan areas posted more than 270,000 jobs online in the past 90 days. This is a 10% improvement over the same 90-day period in 2010. In fact, May 2011 saw the most online job ads in these locations since October 2008.

Hiring Demand in the Top 10 Metro Areas — Past 90 Days:

Source: WANTED Analytics

 

Looking at these 10 metropolitan areas, 9 saw increases.  El Paso, TX was the only location to see a decrease from the same 90 day period in 2010.  Washington, DC saw more than 115,000 new online job ads over this 90 day period – by far the most of any metro area.  However, the greatest growth was in Houston, which had a 25.8% year-over-year increase and just surpassed Madison, Wisconsin.

Hiring Demand in the Top 10

Metropolitan Areas – 90 Days 

Source: WANTED Analytics

Each organization has seen varying degrees of growth in these areas. The below chart shows the number of online job ads during the past 90 days and the percentage growth from same time period in 2010.  SAIC posted the most jobs, with more than 2,200 new ads and seeing a 109% growth. AT&T, General Dynamics and UnitedHealth Group saw declines.

Top 10 Employers Based on Hiring Demand

in Top 10 Metropolitan Areas

Source: WANTED Analytics

 

All of the top occupations by ad volume show strong year-over-year growth.  6 of the top 10 jobs are Computer Programming and IT related, with Computer Systems Analysts as the top position.

Top Occupations by Ad Volume in these

10 Metro Areas over the Past 90 days 

Source: WANTED Analytics

 

Recruiters will experience varying degrees of difficulty when sourcing for these positions, depending on the job and location.  Across the US, recruiting has increased for Computer Programming and Healthcare jobs – they are the 2 most in-demand fields.  Recruiters can expect those jobs to be difficult to fill generally.  However, when looking at Accounting jobs, even though it ranked #10 in the above list of occupations, some recruiters may experience challenges. Employers and staffing firms in San Antonio are heavily competing to attract candidates with accounting skills from a limited talent pool and making recruiting difficult, according to the Hiring Scale.

In contrast, Austin has seen less demand on their talent pool and is likely to fill open positions more easily than most of their US counterparts.  Recruiters in San Antonio that find talent shortages and struggle to fill open Accounting positions should consider sourcing potential candidates from the Austin area. Since recruiting conditions are significantly better there, recruiters will gain access to an alternative talent pool.

On the other hand, this high demand by recruiters means that Accounting professionals looking for work in San Antonio will see this increased volume of online job ads. They are likely to experience better conditions finding a new job than accounting professionals in Austin or many other parts of the US.

Hiring Scales for Accountants in San Antonio and Austin, TX

Source: WANTED Analytics