Best Cities for a Job in 2009

Jan. 20, 2009— -- Having trouble finding a job in, say, New York City or South Florida? You might give Madison, Wis., a try. It's got an unusually healthy outlook for job growth and a strikingly low unemployment rate -- 3.5 percent in October, when the national rate was 6.5 percent.

That's why Madison tops Ajilon Professional Staffing's list of top 10 cities to find a job. To compile the list, Ajilon's researchers started by examining the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Metropolitan Area Jobs Report, published in October, to find the cities with the lowest unemployment rate and highest number of new jobs created in the previous six months. They then combined that data with other evidence from their offices throughout the country to discover why these cities have the best job situations.

Click here to learn more about the 10 cities where they're hiring at our partner site, Forbes.com.

Madison has several things going for it. Not only is the University of Wisconsin a major employer, but the university's research arm, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, has been fueling growth in the biotech, health care and medical-devices industries. The foundation provides grants and helps scientists affiliated with the university to patent new discoveries. It has aided Madison in becoming a regional hub for those industries.

"Wisconsin greatly benefits from having a really wide range of companies, from start-up to mature, leaving us less dependent on only large or small employers to keep our economy and job market booming," says Alise Wozniak, Madison branch manager of Adecco General Staffing. A spokeswoman for the city's chamber of commerce adds that Madison is "historically recession proof," partly because it's the seat of state and county governments, as well as city, and they all provide jobs.

Most of the cities on the list benefit from plentiful government jobs, but none more than Washington, D.C. Government is that town's largest employer. Even more jobs have been created since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were launched and the Department of Homeland security was born, all during the Bush administration.