Forbes Magazine Ranks Atlanta Fourth Best City for Jobs in 2008

Forbes Magazine recently ranked Atlanta fourth best city for jobs in 2008. On Monday, March 10, 2008, Mayor Shirley Franklin spoke with Tory Johnson founder and CEO of Women For Hire, and the Workplace Contributor on ABC's Good Morning America about Atlanta’s success attracting and retaining companies and jobs. Mayor Franklin’s interview can be seen on ABC News Now at http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4430744

According to the Atlanta Regional Commission, the City of Atlanta is projected to add nearly 140,000 new residents, for a 2030 population of more than 600,000. Metro Atlanta is expected to add nearly 2 million people and 1.5 million jobs by 2030.

At any given time, the City of Atlanta is involved in about 50 business relocation projects. We work closely with the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, State of Georgia's Department of Economic Development and Georgia Power to promote the City of Atlanta to businesses considering facility expansions resulting in job creation.

Atlanta's quality of life, weather, affordable housing, arts and culture, a great spirit of entrepreneurship and the benefit of having the world’s busiest airport make Atlanta attractive to companies and people looking to relocate especially young people.

Companies also want to come to Atlanta because of our educated workforce—with nearly 130,000 students enrolling in 30 metro area colleges every year. Recent college graduates and young professionals continue to choose Atlanta because it is a great place to live with interesting jobs in bioscience, hospitality, transportation, financial services, distribution and health care.

To compile the rankings for the Best Cities For Jobs list forecast, Forbes Magazine used five data points, weighted equally: the state's unemployment rate, job growth, income growth, median household income and cost of living for full-year 2006 (only partial data is available so far for 2007). They measured the largest 100 metropolitan areas, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, and obtained the data from Moody's Economy.com. The Forbes Magazine report can be found at http://www.forbes.com/2008/01/10/jobs-economy-growth-lead-careers-cx_mk_0110cities.html

Forbes Top Ten Cities for Jobs in 2008

Salt Lake City, UT
Wichita, KS
Austin, TX
Atlanta, GA
Fort Worth, TX
Indianapolis, ID
Houston, TX
Omaha, NE
Raliegh, NC
Seattle, WA