How We Spend Our Days
We're still among the best when it comes to making things and moving them. One in eight Greater Clevelanders still work in manufacturing and transportation. Here's what the rest of our workforce looks like.
14th Service jobs (18.2 percent)
21st Sales and office jobs (26.1 percent)
34th Management and professional jobs (35.7 percent)
44th Construction, extraction, maintenance and repair (6.6 percent)
Commuting
6th (out of 10)
The average commute time in Greater Cleveland is 23.9 minutes, 60 seconds faster than the national average. Not impressed? Consider that the Cleveland commuter faces yearly traffic delays totaling 19 hours, which sounds like a lot until you realize it's 44 percent less than the national average of 34 hours. Let that comfort you the next time you're staring down a sea of orange barrels. New York State of Mind: Once you get away from Manhattan, New York state has some easy drives. Buffalo (5th) had the shortest average commute length of 8.15 miles, and Rochester (1st) had the shortest average commute time of 18.7 minutes.
Telecommuting
6th (out of 11)
Merge a low cost of living with an intelligent work force, and you get a great place to go to work in your pajamas. AOL's Daily Finance website conducted this 2010 study under the guise that the best cities for telecommuters are ones that provide big city amenities at an affordable price. The ranking took into account cost of living, educational attainment, and the number of universities and libraries, among other factors. Go ahead and clip this out and take it to your boss right now. Fit Club: Because working from home can wreck your personal fitness, the study also consulted the American College of Sports Medicine's American Fitness Index. Cleveland currently finishes a middle-of-the-pack 25th out of 50 metro areas.
Job Market
7th (out of 10)
Health care and information technology are two industries that didn't wilt under the harsh glare of the recession. Sure, Cleveland's medical dominance is part of the reason it made Monster.com's 2011 list of the hottest markets for job seekers, but it's not the whole story. The job-search website bases its rankings on jobs available per person in the market. Translation: New jobs without corresponding population growth betters your chances. The Big Three: Even with huge populations, Washington, D.C. (1st), San Francisco (2nd) and Boston (3rd) topped the list because of the high demand for computer system analysts and Web developers.
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