ATL Tops List of Best Places to Start a Career
WalletHub names ATL #1 place to start a career
06/01/2023
BY ELIZABETH McGINNESS
Young professionals entering the workforce in Midtown find opportunity
For young professionals entering the workforce, ATL is the land of opportunity as we move further away from the turbulent job market conditions that wrecked havoc at the onset of the pandemic. Recent college grads, you’re in luck. According to WalletHub’s recent findings, employers nationally are hiring 14.7% more people from the Class of 2023 than they did from the Class of 2022. And Atlanta was just ranked #1 for the best places to start a career. The city moved up two spots from last year’s study, where Atlanta was previously ranked third.
WalletHub used various metrics to determine rankings, including:
- Monthly average starting salary (adjusted for cost of living)
- Commuter friendly jobs (calculated how many jobs were accessible by a 30-min transit ride)
- Average length of work week (hours)
- Average commute time in minutes
- Share of population aged 25 to 34 and millennial newcomers
- Projected population growth
- Fun friendliness and the appeal for both families and singles
Atlanta gets another win under its belt
It’s also notable that Atlanta has been on a recent win streak for rankings like this, with Money magazine naming ATL best place to live for 2022 and Economist also giving ATL a top ranking in 2022. Atlanta never fails to impress, and we aren’t surprised with this latest accolade in part because of how much Midtown has boomed over the last decade. Midtown is one of the best places to start a career in Atlanta. From the 2022 Midtown Community Survey, 95% of respondents who work in Midtown feel it’s a great place to work (n=1,617).
South Florida native who moved here in 2022 describes Midtown’s appeal
Gabriella Gutierrez, a native of South Florida, moved to Atlanta last year for a job opportunity at a Fortune 500 tech company with an office in Midtown. She said in an interview that before she moved to her apartment in Midtown, “Every time I would commute to work from a few miles away, I would think, ‘Man I really want to live here.’ It’s so clean, so friendly, and welcoming."
Gutierrez, who now works and lives in Midtown said, “Midtown is growing like crazy. People are finding opportunities here. New buildings are going up everywhere. Different companies are coming here. The WalletHub ranking is definitely not wrong.”
Midtown Atlanta is big on tech
Midtown is 1% of the City of Atlanta’s land area, but accounts for 14% of the City’s jobs and 30% of tech jobs. “There is so much tech opportunity here and it is bringing a lot to the city and a lot of jobs,” said Gutierrez. More than 28,000 new jobs have been announced in Midtown since 2015, many of them in the tech sector.
Hey, Jobseekers: A tool to help in your search
So, if you’re a young professional entering the working world and looking to land in Atlanta, how do you start? ChooseATL.com, an online hub managed by the Metro Atlanta Chamber to attract Gen Z and Millennial talent to the region, is a great resource for jobseekers. This site features job listings from employers all around Atlanta.
Only in Midtown
Midtown has a lot to offer, and employers and prospective employees often see it with their own eyes when they visit. Read more about what makes Midtown an exceptional urban place in our “Only in Midtown” guide on our Resource Center.
