We analyze why residents of Austin and San Jose care more about great workplaces than those in New York City and Pittsburgh
In case you weren’t already paying attention to your company’s employment branding, here’s another good reason to think hard about how your company is perceived.
It seems ‘best companies to work for’ lists matter to job hunters: every year, when Fortune magazine’s compilation is released in January, Google searches for it soar.
Surprisingly, some cities care more about employer branding than others: residents of San Jose are the most likely to care, Google data shows.
Do the cities correspond with areas where job hunters can be choosier because of tighter labor markets? It looks like that may be the case, as areas that house large amounts of award-winning workplaces tend to populate the list:
San Jose
It seems ‘best companies to work for’ lists matter to job hunters: every year, when Fortune magazine’s compilation is released in January, Google searches for it soar.
Surprisingly, some cities care more about employer branding than others: residents of San Jose are the most likely to care, Google data shows.
Do the cities correspond with areas where job hunters can be choosier because of tighter labor markets? It looks like that may be the case, as areas that house large amounts of award-winning workplaces tend to populate the list:
San Jose
- Rated by Careerbliss as the happiest place to work in the USA in January 2014
- The capital of Silicon Valley, and thus home to Cisco, eBay, IBM, and Adobe
- Households of San Jose have more disposable income per capita than anywhere else in the US
- Unemployment rate of 6.3%
- A defense and military employment hub
- Unemployment rate of 7%
- Ranked by Forbes as the best city for working mothers in 2012
- Unemployment rate of 5.5%
- Another technology center, featuring IBM, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Intel as major employers
- Unemployment rate of 4.8%
- Home to lauded employers Amazon, Starbucks and Microsoft
- Unemployment rate of 6%
- A fairly diverse set of employers, although tertiary institutions employ a large chunk of the workforce
- Unemployment rate of 5.9%
- Home to many employees who commute to Silicon Valley for technology jobs
- Unemployment rate of 5.9%
- A hub for the financial and media industries, and home to dozens of high-profile global companies
- Unemployment rate of 8%
- Its central location makes it a hub for employment in government and transportation, while the state’s natural mineral-rich soils fill it with mining, oil and energy companies with plenty of cash to splash on employee benefits
- Unemployment rate of 6.5%
- Nine Fortune 500 employers are based here, and even award-winning workplace Google has offices in the former steel hub
- Unemployment rate of 5.8%