Valley suburb ranked best city in America to get a job

Scottsdale: It’s not just for upscale bar crawls, pedicabs, hotels and golf courses. It’s apparently the best city in the United States to be gainfully employed.

Recently, the finance website WalletHub conducted a study to determine the best American cities for jobs. Its analysis considered a number of “job market” factors, including job opportunities, employment growth, monthly average starting salary and unemployment rate. It also looked at “socio-economic” criteria like median annual income, commute times, housing affordability and safety. WalletHub assigned weights to all those factors and mixed them in a big analytical stew, and Scottsdale floated to the top.

According to WalletHub, Scottsdale boasts the No. 1 job market in the U.S. and the 16th-best socio-economic situation, which combine to give the tony Phoenix suburb the top overall spot out of 182 American cities. It tied for first in median annual household income ($101,000), is seventh in recreation opportunities, has the 11th-lowest crime rate, is the 12th-best city for families and is 16th in the “prevalence of paid internship opportunities.”

The suburb of roughly 245,000 people is one of the best cities for jobs, the site wrote, “in large part because it boasts one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, which demonstrates that most residents have no trouble finding work.”

So, should you pull up stakes and move to Scottsdale? Well, maybe only if you can afford it. What WalletHub’s analysis might miss is that many people who live in Scottsdale work outside of it, either in Phoenix or the growing business hub of Tempe. So while Scottsdale residents undeniably make a lot of money on average — you pretty much have to in order to afford living there — it’s not as if a move to Scottsdale is what opens the door to lucrative career opportunities. Scottsdale may attract highly paid professionals more than it creates them.

To an extent, the same may be true of several other Arizona cities to make WalletHub’s list, especially those in the Valley. Chandler — another city whose residents may commute to nearby communities for work — ranked 14th on WalletHub’s list, while Gilbert matched Scottsdale’s top rank for median household income.

Here’s how every Arizona city stacked up.

1. Scottsdale
14. Chandler
28. Gilbert
30. Tempe
33. Peoria
55. Mesa
72. Phoenix
80. Glendale
130. Tucson