Forbes: Des Moines #1 Best City for Young Professionals

By Morgan Brennan

With the unemployment rate stuck above 9%, recent college graduates are facing fierce competition for white-collar work: More than 2 million college-educated workers 25 and older are unemployed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But prospects are much brighter in some cities than others, most notably Des Moines, Iowa, which ranks No. 1 on our list of Best Cities For Young Professionals.

The Iowa state capital has a higher concentration of big businesses (1 for every 568 residents) than any other city we assessed, which equals more job opportunities. Financial services and insurance companies like Principal Financial Group and EMC Insurance Companies have long made their home in the corn-belt city, earning it the nickname “Hartford of the West.”

With business costs 16% below the national average, Des Moines has been attracting startups and companies relocating from the coasts, and a number of established companies in the area are expanding, like DuPont’s bioscience unit Pioneer Hybrid, which plans to hire an additional 500 employees over the next few years. As a result, Des Moines boasts a low 5.8% unemployment rate (sixth lowest of the 100 cities we studied) and healthy projected job growth rates of 0.97% in 2011 and 2.86% in 2012.

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