Where the Jobs Are

Those looking for a new job will have the most options since 2008. But most of those opportunities aren’t in the places you might expect them to be.

Almost a fifth of employers plan to hire in the first quarter of 2015, according to the Manpower Employer Outlook Survey. That’s a slight improvement over last year, and the most since the first quarter of 2008. About 6% are planning to slash jobs.

The survey of 18,000 employers in 100 metropolitan areas found that employers across all 13 industries and in all 50 states surveyed had positive hiring outlooks. But jobs in some of the most popular cities—Boston, Minneapolis, New York, and Portland—won’t be so easy to find. Only 10 percent of employers in those metro areas expect to hire.

Where will job seekers find the most opportunities?

The top industries were: Leisure & Hospitality, Wholesale & Retail Trade, Transportation & Utilities, and Professional & Business Services.

Geographically, companies in Hawaii, North Dakota, Delaware, Michigan and Texas plan to hire the most, and those in New Jersey, Alaska, New Hampshire and Rhode Island employers the least.

Broken down by cities, employers with the strongest outlooks were in:

• Cape Coral, Fla.
• McAllen, Texas
• Deltona, Fla.
• Grand Rapids, Mich.
• Milwaukee, Wis.
• Oxnard, Calif.

The weakest prospects were in:

• Spokane, Wash.
• Syracuse, NY
• Rochester, NY
• Indianapolis, Ind.
• Portland, Ore.

Those looking for international gigs will find the most opportunities in India, Taiwan, New Zealand, Japan, Turkey and Panama while the weakest and only negative outlooks are reported in Finland, Italy, Netherlands and Switzerland.