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
| Oct 13, 2010
HQ renovations aim for modern look
Gerner Kronick + Valcarcel Architects’ renovations to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s New York City headquarters will feature a reworked reception lobby with back-painted glass, silk-screened logos, and a video wall.
| Oct 13, 2010
Community center under way in NYC seeks LEED Platinum
A curving, 550-foot-long glass arcade dubbed the “Wall of Light” is the standout architectural and sustainable feature of the Battery Park City Community Center, a 60,000-sf complex located in a two-tower residential Lower Manhattan complex. Hanrahan Meyers Architects designed the glass arcade to act as a passive energy system, bringing natural light into all interior spaces.
| Oct 13, 2010
Community college plans new campus building
Construction is moving along on Hudson County Community College’s North Hudson Campus Center in Union City, N.J. The seven-story, 92,000-sf building will be the first higher education facility in the city.
| Oct 13, 2010
County building aims for the sun, shade
The 187,032-sf East County Hall of Justice in Dublin, Calif., will be oriented to take advantage of daylighting, with exterior sunshades preventing unwanted heat gain and glare. The building is targeting LEED Silver. Strong horizontal massing helps both buildings better match their low-rise and residential neighbors.
| Oct 12, 2010
Holton Career and Resource Center, Durham, N.C.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Special Recognition. Early in the current decade, violence within the community of Northeast Central Durham, N.C., escalated to the point where school safety officers at Holton Junior High School feared for their own safety. The school eventually closed and the property sat vacant for five years.
| Oct 12, 2010
Guardian Building, Detroit, Mich.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Special Recognition. The relocation and consolidation of hundreds of employees from seven departments of Wayne County, Mich., into the historic Guardian Building in downtown Detroit is a refreshing tale of smart government planning and clever financial management that will benefit taxpayers in the economically distressed region for years to come.
| Oct 12, 2010
Owen Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Officials at Michigan State University’s East Lansing Campus were concerned that Owen Hall, a mid-20th-century residence facility, was no longer attracting much interest from its target audience, graduate and international students.
| Oct 12, 2010
Gartner Auditorium, Cleveland Museum of Art
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Gartner Auditorium was originally designed by Marcel Breuer and completed, in 1971, as part of his Education Wing at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Despite that lofty provenance, the Gartner was never a perfect music venue.
| Oct 12, 2010
Cell and Genome Sciences Building, Farmington, Conn.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Administrators at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington didn’t think much of the 1970s building they planned to turn into the school’s Cell and Genome Sciences Building. It’s not that the former toxicology research facility was in such terrible shape, but the 117,800-sf structure had almost no windows and its interior was dark and chopped up.
| Oct 12, 2010
The Watch Factory, Waltham, Mass.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards — Gold Award. When the Boston Watch Company opened its factory in 1854 on the banks of the Charles River in Waltham, Mass., the area was far enough away from the dust, dirt, and grime of Boston to safely assemble delicate watch parts.
