WalletHub compared 180 U.S. cities and changes in their unemployment numbers in May of 2021.
Cities in New England, the Mountain States and the Southeast are seeing the fastest unemployment recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic, according to WalletHub research.
WalletHub compared 180 U.S. cities and changes in their unemployment numbers in May 2021 compared to May 2019, May 2020 and January 2020. The personal finance website also looked at each city’s overall unemployment rate.
The top 10 cities with the best unemployment recovery rates are:
- Manchester, New Hampshire (1.6% unemployment rate)
- Nashua, New Hampshire (1.7% unemployment rate)
- Burlington, Vermont (1.3% unemployment rate)
- South Burlington, Vermont (1.2% unemployment rate)
- Lincoln, Nebraska (2.2% unemployment rate)
- Huntsville, Alabama (2.4% unemployment rate)
- Omaha, Nebraska (2.8% unemployment rate)
- Salt Lake City, Utah (2.7% unemployment rate)
- Sioux Falls, South Dakota (2.7% unemployment rate)
- Billings, Montana (3% unemployment rate)
The 10 cities with the slowest unemployment recovery (from bottom to top) are:
- Hialeah, Florida (8% unemployment rate)
- New Orleans, Louisiana (11% unemployment rate)
- Long Beach, California (10.6% unemployment rate)
- Glendale, California (10.4% unemployment rate)
- Newark, New Jersey (11.6% unemployment rate)
- New York, New York (9.8% unemployment rate)
- Los Angeles, California (10.1% unemployment rate)
- San Bernadino, California (9.6% unemployment rate)
- Chicago, Illinois (9.3% unemployment rate)
- North Las Vegas, Nevada (9.9% unemployment rate)
Linda Fisher Thornton, adjunct associate professor at the University of Richmond School of Professional and Continuing Studies, told WalletHub that “leaders” should “think long term as they develop and implement solutions, and assume that every industry will need to radically improve the way it works to adapt to the new reality” in order to improve unemployment rates.
