In a recent list by Kearney, Nebraska made the top ten as one of the best places for millennials to embark on the job hunt in the Midwest!

As a whole, the Midwest is one of the best regions to find employment in the first place: The unemployment rate is consistently lower, and in March, the jobless rate was 5%, the lowest for all regions. This was also 0.5% below the national unemployment rate. With ten states and 124 metro regions, there’s plenty of room for opportunity, so NerdWallet “crunched the numbers” to find the best places to start.

How did they determine these hotspots? They looked at the millennial population, what percentage of residents were millennials, and the population growth of that demographic. Millennials are categorized as age 18-34, but they looked at average income for residents ages 25-44. They also looked at unemployment rates, and used all data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Places with less than 20,000 residents weren’t included as metro areas, so they narrowed it down to just those cities with high millennial populations.

The top two cities were actually in North Dakota, if you’re a millennial looking for a job. West Fargo, North Dakota has employers like Sanford Fargo Medical Center and North Dakota State University, and Minot, North Dakota has had a traditionally strong trade economy now boosted by the boom in shale oil. The Air Force base is the city’s largest employer, but there are some high salaries to be found in the Williston Basin that have been a major draw for young workers.

There were some other interesting choices, but Kearney, Nebraska made #6 on the list for the presence of the University of Nebraska at Kearney and the city’s central location on Interstate 80. They called it a “diverse and flourishing economy,” with major employers like software developer Xpanxion and online clothing retailer Buckle.com. The unemployment rate is just 3.1% among residents 20-44 years old, and the population of millennials has grown 7.9% from 2010 to 2013.

Kearney is also home to some amazing manufacturers who do their part in employing plenty of millennials in the area. There are, as you might expect, plenty of agricultural manufacturers. Inter-Motion offers custom machine design and building for centerless grinders, cylindrical grinders, surface grinders, and other grinding and specialty machines, and Delux Manufacturing Co. is actually known worldwide for their grain dryers. There are many more manufacturers located in Kearney that don’t simply focus on agriculture, as well.

With low unemployment rates, high numbers of millennials, and as a home to many outstanding, world-renowned manufacturers, Kearney is certainly one of the major places to be if you’re a worker looking for employment, especially in the manufacturing field.

Questions? Comments? Want to learn more? Leave a comment in the section below, anytime!

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