Northwest Arkansas is among the regions in the U.S. creating the fastest growth in high-wage, white-collar jobs.
Northwest Arkansas ranked No. 3 among medium-sized cities in its rate of white-collar job growth on the list first published by Forbes and later published by NewGeography.com. The region was ranked at No. 4 in 2015.
Joel Kotkin, the report’s author and the executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism, used metropolitant statistical area data to determine the rankings. Kotkin wrote that “the real action in high-wage job growth in the United States is in the vast realm of professional and business services.” He described professional and business services as the “largest high-wage part of the economy,” representing almost 20 million jobs averaging $30 an hour.
On this year’s list, only two medium-sized cities out-paced Northwest Arkansas’ impressive professional and business services job growth. Those places were Trenton, N.J. and Sioux Falls, S.D.
The report showed professional and business services jobs represent a huge portion of the overall jobs in Northwest Arkansas.
The same publication determined Northwest Arkansas ranks No. 16 among all U.S. metropolitan statistical areas. New Bedford, Mass., held the top position. New Geography ranked Northwest Arkansas at No. 26 overall in 2015.
