The Greater Charlotte, N.C., area is the best city to work for a small business, according to a new survey by Wallet Hub, the three-year-old website that provides tools and information to consumers and small business owners to help them make financial decisions.
Wallet Hub analyzed the small-business environment in the 100 most populated metros in the U.S., and used 11 metrics to assess which cities are friendliest to workers and job seekers.
The study concluded that Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, N.C., ranked first as the country’s best small business environment, based on the number of businesses with fewer than 250 employees, the growth of those business, net job growth, industry variety, the percentage of small businesses that provide health insurance to employees, and employee earnings.
Wallet Hub also ranked Greater Charlotte 18th for its economic environment, which includes its median annual income, unemployment rate, average hours worked, population growth, and “well-being index.”
Combining the two scores, Wallet Hub ranked Charlotte first overall as the best city to work for a small business. Charlotte is followed by Raleigh, N.C., (with a small-business environment rank of 10th, and economic environment rank of 3rd). Oklahoma City (2nd and 21st), Austin-Round Rock, Texas (14th and 4th), and Omaha-Council Bluffs, Neb. (4th and 12th).
The worst metros to be working for a small business, based on Wallet Hub’s criteria, are Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, Ohio/Pa. (100th, 95th), Stockton-Lodi, Calif. (99th, 85th), Toledo, Ohio (87th, 100th) Scranton-Wilkes Barre-Hazelton, Pa. (84th, 99th), and Fresno, Calif. (98th, 72th).
Wallet Hub also ranked metros by different subcategories. For example, three of the top five metros with the highest net small-business job growth are in Florida: Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Lakeland-Winter Haven, and North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton. Conversely three of the five metros with the lowest small-business job growth are in California: Bakersfield, Stockton-Lodi, and Fresno.
Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, Fla., ranks highest for the number of small business per 1,000 inhabitants. That ratio in Miami is two times higher than in Bakerfield, which ranks lowest in this subcategory.
Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, Texas, has the highest earnings for small business employees (adjusted for cost of living), whereas Honolulu has the lowest earnings.
Wallet Hub also finds that the unemployment rate in Fresno is four times higher than in Provo, Utah. Cape Coral is expected to have the highest increase (103.4%) in population through 2042, while Youngstown is projected to have the highest decrease over the period (11.1%)
Wallet Hub offers some tips for employees looking to land a small-business job. It recommends that job seekers tailor their search, “but avoiding limiting yourself” to a certain job classification or industry. It also recommends that job seekers look beyond their immediate compensation and consider the longer-range growth prospects that an employer can offer. And job candidates need to be ready to defend any information about themselves that might be floating around on social media.
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
HGA creates greener outlook with print systems from Océ
Since its founding in 1953, HGA Architects and Engineers (HGA), a full service integrated architectural and engineering firm, has operated with an unwavering belief that good design is sustainable. HGA takes its environmental responsibility seriously, both in the buildings the firm designs, its internal operations and its vendor partnerships. Therefore, when HGA decided to investigate new options for its printing and scanning needs, the firm wanted a vendor who shared its values.
| Aug 11, 2010
Report: Building codes and regulations impede progress toward uber-green buildings
The enthusiasm for super green Living Buildings continues unabated, but a key stumbling block to the growth of this highest level of green building performance is an existing set of codes and regulations. A new report by the Cascadia Region Green Building Council entitled "Code, Regulatory and Systemic Barriers Affecting Living Building Projects" presents a case for fundamental reassessment of building codes.
| Aug 11, 2010
PSA-Dewberry designing new Baltimore youth detention center
A consulting team led by PSA-Dewberry has been selected by the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services to design the new Baltimore Youth Detention Center in downtown Baltimore, Md. The $80-million facility will accommodate youths who have been criminally charged as adults, and will enable the state to increase its educational, counseling, and healthcare services for youth offenders.
| Aug 11, 2010
Lincoln High School
Tacoma, Wash.
Lincoln High School in Tacoma, Wash., was built in 1913 and spent nearly a century morphing into a patchwork of outdated and confusing additions. A few years ago, the Tacoma School District picked Lincoln High School, dubbed “Old Main,” to be the first high school in the district to be part of its newly launched Small Learning Communities program.
| Aug 11, 2010
CampusBrands Inc., NYLO Hotels team to launch student housing franchise brand
Which would you choose: the cramped quarters, thin mattresses, and crowded communal bathrooms of dormitory life or a new type of student housing with comfortable couches, a game room, fitness center, Wi-Fi in every room, flat-screen televisions and maybe even a theater?
| Aug 11, 2010
Perkins Eastman awarded Indian School of Business campus
The New York office of international design and architecture firm Perkins Eastman has been commissioned by the Indian School of Business for a 70-acre, 1.5 million-sf new business school campus as part of a 300-acre “Knowledge City” in Chandigarh, Mohali, India. The sustainable campus will accommodate four centers of excellence: healthcare management, public policy, manufacturing/ operations, and physical infrastructure management.
| Aug 11, 2010
Portland Cement Association offers blast resistant design guide for reinforced concrete structures
Developed for designers and engineers, "Blast Resistant Design Guide for Reinforced Concrete Structures" provides a practical treatment of the design of cast-in-place reinforced concrete structures to resist the effects of blast loads. It explains the principles of blast-resistant design, and how to determine the kind and degree of resistance a structure needs as well as how to specify the required materials and details.
| Aug 11, 2010
NASA plans federal government's greenest building
NASA is set to break ground on what the agency expects will become the highest performing building in the federal government. Named Sustainability Base, the new building at Ames Research Center in Sunnyvale, Calif., will be a showplace for sustainable technologies, featuring "NASA Inside" through the incorporation of some of the agency’s most advanced recycling and intelligent controls technologies originally developed to support NASA’s human and robotic space exploration missions.
