New York, the worst city to start a professional career

New York is a city known for being "the concrete jungle" where dreams come true. However, this phrase does not apply to everyone. A new report from WalletHub indicated that NYC is the worst place to start building a career after finishing college.

The Big Apple was preceded by Gulfport, Mississippi (ranked 181st); Newark, New Jersey, (180th); Detroit, Michigan (179th); Santa Clarita, California (178th); and North Las Vegas, Nevada (177th).

NYC ranked last among 182 cities

In the study "The Best and Worst Places to Start a Career 2023", NYC ranked last out of 182 cities. It also revealed that the city has the lowest number of entry-level jobs per 100,000 professionals over the age of 16.

WalletHub used data from the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Indeed.com, Glassdoor and other real estate companies to determine which were the best and worst cities and divided the rankings into two categories that included 26 metrics:

- Career opportunities: availability of jobs (measures the number of entry-level jobs per 100,000 residents over the age of 16); Average monthly starting wage; Annual employment growth rate; Proportion of workers in poverty; Unemployment rate; Job satisfaction; Ease of entrepreneurship, among others.

- Quality of life: median annual income; Average Length of Work Week (in hours); Percentage of population aged 25-34; Percentage of newly arrived millennials; Percentage of adults aged 25 and older with at least a bachelor's degree; Projected population growth (2046 vs. 2016); Housing affordability and Ease for singles, among others.

On the other hand, the best cities to start a career were: Atlanta, Georgia (1); Orlando, Florida (2); Salt Lake City, Utah (3); Columbia, South Carolina (4); Tampa, Florida (5).

The high cost of living in NYC

The report pays special attention to housing prices in the cities analyzed. One of the reasons New York City is at the bottom of the ranking is because in a matter of a month, rents increased by 1.6% (from an average of $4,175 in March to $4,241 in April), according to a analysis by Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel.

The area that experienced the largest increase over last year was Brooklyn, where the average monthly cost increased by 14.8% . In Manhattan, the price to rent a studio apartment increased by 13.5%. On the other hand, in Queens the increase was 12.8% compared to last year.

Miller Samuel CEO Jonathan Miller commented to The New York Post that "seeing record rents for the second month in a row, coupled with the roughly 20% monthly drop in new leases suggests that tenants are perhaps giving up and renewing because options are limited for equivalent services."

Miller commented that at this time it does not appear that rental prices will be coming down. He stated that price declines - which normally occur before the summer - would be "contingent on an economic event, such as a recession, with a significant loss of jobs." If there is no economic event that changes the course of the real estate market, "it is reasonable that we could see additional records in the next four months."