Thousands of Americans across the U.S. are wondering if they would be better off somewhere else. The question is where?
As unemployment and foreclosures continue to rise, stocks keep fluctuating and cash-strapped state and city governments move to increase taxes and trim services, many people are finding that careers and communities they once believed secure are no longer dependable. They may have lost their job or fear losing their job; they may be stuck paying more mortgage than their home is worth; or they may have seen their family's quality of life evaporate. For those troubled Americans who are willing to relocate, the U.S. can still be a land of opportunity.
No state is totally buffered from the downturn, but several have gotten a boost from the energy, military and agricultural sectors. The healthiest states include Alaska, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming. In the Washington, D.C., area, federal government and defense jobs have given the economy a boost. And Iowa, which has seen its economy somewhat deteriorate, has also benefited from agricultural and alternative-energy jobs.
Slide show: The 10 best places to start over
Fargo, N.D.: Jobs, safety, schools
Moving isn't an option for many Americans tied down by family responsibilities and houses they can't sell. Others are reluctant to leave relatives, friends, churches and school districts to make a fresh start in an unfamiliar place.
For job seekers with some flexibility, relocation can open up opportunities, says Ernie Goss, professor of economics at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb. Some of the best job markets, such as Omaha and Fargo, N.D., are also places with low crime, decent schools and a low cost of living, Goss says.
"If people are looking for a job and they're in Detroit, they're in the wrong place," Goss says. "They need to be considering geographic mobility."
BusinessWeek.com, working with survey results from Milwaukee staffing firm Manpower, came up with the best places to start over. These are areas where the greatest proportion of employers said they planned to hire in the next quarter, based on a survey of 28,348 U.S. employers that Manpower conducted in April.
Urban Alaska needs qualified workers
Anchorage, Alaska — where 28% of employers said they planned to do some hiring in the third quarter — topped the list, which also included such metropolitan areas as Provo-Orem, Utah; Omaha; Washington; and Amarillo, Texas. (The resort town of Barnstable, Mass., on Cape Cod topped Manpower's survey, with 32% of employers saying they planned to hire in the next quarter, but BusinessWeek did not include it in the ranking because of the likelihood that many of those hires will be temporary seasonal workers.)
Alaska's unemployment rate, which fell to 8% in April, might not suggest that the state has a great job market. But the state's urban employers are hungry for educated, skilled workers. Alaska's tourism industry has been hit, but its military bases, hospitals and oil industry have stayed strong.
"The probability of getting a job, depending on your qualifications, is probably relatively high here," says Scott Goldsmith, professor of economics at the University of Alaska Anchorage. "We haven't been negatively impacted as much as the rest of the country."
Goldsmith says it's possible that out-of-work Californians who have come to Alaska looking for opportunities might be responsible for pushing up the unemployment rate a bit.
"In some sense, it's the end of the road," Goldsmith says. "You tend to get two kinds of people [moving to Alaska]: people running away from something or people looking for something. That 'something' historically has been opportunity — and there's still some of it here."
Specialized medical professionals
For employers, persuading people to move to Alaska isn't necessarily easy. Winters are long, brutal and dark, and getting there is expensive and time-consuming. But summers are beautiful, although brief.
The state has traditionally attracted people who seek a less conventional lifestyle and who might be willing to put up with subzero temperatures for the sense of living in America's last true frontier.
Providence Health & Services Alaska is hiring, especially highly specialized medical professionals. Pat Seizys, regional manager of human resources for the hospital system, says that it is averaging about 200 open positions and that the hardest to fill include speech-language pathologists and nurses with specialized training in wound care and neonatal intensive care.
"We're thousands of miles away from the Lower 48, and access to Alaska takes time and money," she says of the recruiting challenges. "It takes a special character to live in the state because of the environment."
In addition to health care providers, other companies that rank among Alaska's biggest employers include oil giants ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil and canneries such as Unisea and Alyeska.
in Texas as well as history lesson and the way I wrote it looked horrible. Please Come To Texas where everything truly is bigger including our hearts. Jobs are here as well as housing and huge food.
