Pittsburgh 2nd best U.S. city to launch your career

There’s something to be said for being second best.

That’s where Pittsburgh landed in a new study of the nation’s best cities for graduates preparing to launch a career.

That’s right, the city that gained national headlines when it was profiled in Forbes as the worst place for young singles to meet and mate back in 2002 is moving up in the world.

No word on the dating/mating scene in this report, but a new study by personal finance company Wallet Hub ranked Pittsburgh behind only Salt Lake City in a study of 182 U.S. cities particularly appealing for graduates.

The study ranked cities based on 29 key indicators for professional opportunities such as the availability of entry level jobs, starting salaries and quality of life indicators such as affordable housing.

WalletHub used several factors in determining its rankings — mainly in two key dimensions: Professional opportunies and quality of life. Each of those were broken into 29 metrics — such as number of entry-level jobs, four-star jobs available, job fairs, annual job growth rate, economic mobility, share of workers in poverty, workforce diversity, unemployment rate, job satisfaction.

By the way, Pittsburgh came in 4th in opportunities and 6th in quality of life.

The study focused only on each city’s limits and didn’t factor in work in the surrounding metro regions.

Nearby cities didn’t fare as well as Pittsburgh. Cincinnati came in at 30, Columbus, Ohio, was 56, Buffalo was 72, Baltimore was 99, and Cleveland was 132.

Those findings follow a 2017 survey by moveBuddha that declared Pittsburgh among the 10 top cities in the nation for young single men.