Iowa City Ranks High on Two New Forbes Magazine Lists

#5 Best Places to Begin a Career; #13 Top College Towns for Jobs

Iowa City continues to receive national recognition for its economic strength, promising future and quality of life.  Since March of this year, Iowa City has been ranked in three new Forbes lists, most recently #5 for “Best Places to Begin a Career” (communities smaller than 500,000) and #13 for “Top College Towns for Jobs” in May.  For the second year, Iowa City was ranked on Forbes’ “Best Places for Business and Careers” in March.

Iowa City Area Development Group (ICAD Group) President Joe Raso says a combination of innovation and diversity in the Iowa City area contributes to rankings such as these. “The strength of the University of Iowa and University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics, coupled with innovative companies across a diversity of industry sectors, has allowed our market to remain very competitive in these challenging economic times,” said Raso.  “There is no better proof of this then the federal labor statistics showing our region as having one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country."

Iowa City has posted some of the lowest unemployment numbers nationwide this year.

Forbes.com senior writer Matt Woolsey wrote both articles.  Woolsey noted that a strong foundation of growing companies and the University of Iowa contributed to Iowa City’s high ranking on the “Begin a Career” list.  Additionally, positive job growth in the Iowa City area since 2008 lead to Iowa City’s placement on the “College Towns” list.  The University of Iowa was the only Iowa college and Big Ten school on the list.

"Though the Iowa City area is often highlighted in national and international ‘Best of’ publications, it is always gratifying to see our market recognized in prestigious publications such as Forbes,” added Raso.

Forbes utilized multiple sources to compile these rankings including Moody’s Economy.com, Forbes “400 Best Big Companies”, Forbes “200 Best Small Companies,” and metropolitan statistical data provided by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.