After a year like 2020, many Americans are viewing 2021 as an opportunity for a fresh start, including finding a new or better job, according to a recent report from WalletHub. The pandemic slammed the job market in 2020, at one point pushing the unemployment rate up to 14.7%, but it has been steadily recovering. The most recent jobs report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics put the December national unemployment rate at 6.7%. This still leaves many Americans looking for jobs. College graduates from the class of 2021 will see about the same level of hiring as did the class of 2020, WalletHub said, citing data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, which passes for good news given the circumstances of the pandemic. Ultimately, the report said, finding work depends largely on location. WalletHub compared 182 U.S. cities, including the 150 most populated ones and at least two of the most populated cities in each state, across the key dimensions of "job market" and "socioeconomics." Researchers assigned a heavier weight to the former as factors in that category most heavily influence a job seeker's decision about relocation for employment. They then evaluated the two dimensions across 32 key indicators of job-market strength — ranging from job opportunities to employment growth to monthly average starting salary — and graded each one on a 100-point scale, with 100 representing the most favorable conditions for job seekers. Finally, they determined each city's weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score and used the resulting scores to rank-order the sample. See the gallery for the 12 most favorable cities to find employment. Related: |

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