A string of cities across America’s Sunbelt are emerging as graduate-hiring hot spots in an otherwise challenging job market for young professionals, an exclusive analysis shows.
Birmingham, Ala., tops the list of the places where newly minted graduates are landing jobs with a college-level career track, followed by Tampa, Fla., according to the new study by payroll processor ADP. In fact, six of the list’s top 10—including Raleigh, N.C.; Tulsa, Okla.; Nashville, Tenn.; and Charlotte, N.C.—are in the South.
Other pockets of the country also punch above their weight as early-career launchpads for their mix of 20-something hiring, pay and affordability. Columbus, Ohio, and California’s San Jose area unexpectedly got top scores this year—evidence that even places with so-so earning potential or high costs of living can be prime locations for landing that first job postgraduation.
Altogether, the ADP analysis—which measured 53 of the country’s biggest metro areas—shows that what looks like a nascent recovery in graduate hiring is happening unevenly. Recent data shows companies are boosting entry-level hiring this spring after holding back for several seasons, but their appetite hinges a lot on the kind of role, sector and location.
See which cities, and regions, offer the best prospects, and how your location stacks up at the end.
What makes for a fertile spot to launch a career?
Researchers crunched ADP payroll data for more than 400,000 U.S. 20-somethings nationwide. They then weighed hiring rates for jobs that typically require a degree against affordability-adjusted pay in each location.
“If you can get that right mix of hiring, pay and affordability, it’s a really attractive launch point for a young person,” said Nela Richardson , ADP’s chief economist.
The rankings reveal a U.S. economy—and entry-level job market—in flux. A modest rebound in junior tech-industry jobs helped lift greater San Jose to No. 3 from No. 14 a year ago, while a sharper hiring surge in the Tampa-St. Petersburg region in Florida boosted it to second place from 26th.
Meanwhile, Milwaukee, Baltimore and Austin, Texas—all in last year’s top five —fell several notches.
Where the jobs are
Birmingham rose to the top with one of the strongest hiring rates for 20-somethings in college degree-level jobs and an even better affordability score. Median annual wages for recent graduates, meanwhile, rose more than 16% to $59,004, according to the ADP data.
The area is home to a big bioscience sector, anchored by the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and large employers in the automotive and advanced-materials industries, said Trevor Sutton , vice president of economic development at the Birmingham Business Alliance. The latter group has fueled demand for engineers at such companies as Southern Co. and Quanta Power Solutions, a unit of the energy-infrastructure company Quanta Services .
Second-place Tampa had the strongest hiring rate. Local employers in healthcare, financial services, and technology have been steadily hiring early-career talent, said Bob Rohrlack , president and chief executive of the Tampa Bay Chamber. Average rents are easing—slipping 4% year over year as of March after an influx of new residents drove them up 38% between 2020 and 2023, according to Eric Finnigan , vice president of demographics research at John Burns Research & Consulting.
Hazel McQueen , a finance major at the University of Georgia, set her sights on the Tampa area early in her job search. She is moving there after graduation to work at J.P. Morgan Private Bank as an analyst.
“We’re seeing a huge migration of wealth, moving from the Northeast, like New York and Massachusetts, coming down south,” she said. “I just felt that was a great opportunity for me to get my foot in the door.”
San Jose’s third-place finish is one of the biggest surprises. Layoffs have hit Silicon Valley companies including Meta Platforms and Oracle . Yet local employment rose by 3,600 jobs in February from the month before. AI is likely fueling some of that hiring, said Russell Hancock , president and chief executive of the Joint Venture Silicon Valley, a think tank.
Few metro areas, of course, are pricier. But San Jose also offers some of the highest wages. The California Employment Development Department puts average annual earnings there at about $200,000, compared with $86,000 nationwide.
Columbus, meanwhile, is the Midwest’s standout city, with strong hiring and still-reasonable housing costs. It has been a draw for large employers. The military drone manufacturer Anduril Industries is adding more than 4,000 new jobs, including entry-level roles near the city. One of JPMorgan Chase’s largest hubs outside New York City is in Columbus. The bank considers the area “an important source of entry-level talent,” a spokeswoman said.
Hiring has also been strong in advanced manufacturing. And it helps that Columbus’s four major hospital systems cooperate on talent development, said Rich Granger, director of workforce and workplace innovation at the Columbus Chamber of Commerce.
Raleigh—No. 1 on ADP’s list for the past two years—slid to fifth place. But its ecosystem of area research institutions, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke University and other schools, continue to fuel hiring in health and science despite a decline in federal research funding.
Write to Ray A. Smith at Ray.Smith@wsj.com , Jason French at jason.french@wsj.com and Stephanie Stamm at stephanie.stamm@wsj.com
