Atlanta: A Hub for Jobs in Almost Every Industry

(MoneyWatch) 

Atlanta has just about everything a city needs to create jobs.
It's the state capital, and it's home to Emory University,
a major research institution. As a highly efficient transportation hub, Atlanta
gives area businesses a transportation cost advantage that has attracted a
large base of wholesalers. The city is
href="http://www.atlantadowntown.com/business/incentives/state-and-federal-incentives">business
friendly, and housing is relatively cheap. It has more kids per household than many other large cities, which supports a large retail base (up 10.9 percent in 2009).

Economic stimulus funds have given a boost
to the CDC and many of Atlanta’s research institutions.

It's a hub for government jobs, as home to both
the Sixth Federal Reserve District and the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. Media companies, including biggies like CNN, the Weather Channel,
and Cox Communications, have a solid foothold. Only Houston and New York City
are home to more Fortune 500 headquarters. It's just a
very balanced economy, and there's no city within 500 miles that
competes with it," says Stephen S. Fuller, director of the Center for
Regional Analysis at George Mason University in Washington, D.C. "Atlanta
can be as big as it wants to be."

One way to take advantage of that balanced economy: Join the
army of management,
scientific, and financial consultants that help support it. According to
the BLS, jobs in specialized consulting will grow 84 percent nationwide by
2018.

Photo courtesy of the CDC.

Check out these other hiring cities:

• Austin
• Dallas
• Raleigh
• Seattle
• Minneapolis
• Denver
• Washington, D.C.
• San Francisco
• Santa Ana