US Cities by Job Growth, 2026

Overview

The indicator shows the published BLS over-the-year percent-change estimate in metro-area total nonfarm payroll employment. A higher value means the published estimate is higher relative to April 2025, but it does not automatically mean BLS classified the metro as a statistically significant employment increase.

The upper part of the snapshot includes smaller tourism and coastal markets, regional service hubs, and larger Sun Belt metros with stronger absolute payroll gains. Barnstable Town has the highest published percentage estimate, while Las Vegas has the largest absolute job gain among the 20 listed metros.

Top 10 positive published BLS payroll-change estimates

The Top 10 positive published estimates range from +4.1% in Barnstable Town to +2.3% in Athens-Clarke County. This table ranks the BLS percent-change estimates; it should not be read as a list of all statistically significant metro employment increases.

Tie handling: rows are sorted by percent estimate first, then by absolute employment change in thousands, then by metro name.

Methodology

The metric is the published over-the-year percent-change estimate in total nonfarm payroll employment for U.S. metropolitan areas. The value compares April 2026 with April 2025 and is reported in BLS not seasonally adjusted metro payroll tables. Direction is descending: higher positive published estimates rank higher.

The target year is 2026 because the current observation is April 2026. The base year is 2025 because each row compares with April 2025. The unit is percent change, with the official employment change in thousands shown as a supporting note. The values are official BLS observed estimates, not forecasts or modeled projections.

BLS reported statistically notable over-the-year nonfarm employment increases in only 4 metropolitan areas in April 2026: Las Vegas-Henderson-North Las Vegas, Raleigh-Cary, Barnstable Town and Merced. This ranking uses the published percent-change estimates from the BLS supplemental table and therefore includes positive estimates that BLS may classify as essentially unchanged.

Missing values are excluded. Conflicts are not averaged because the ranking uses one official BLS release and its supplemental table. The table does not mix city-limit employment, county employment, labor-force employment, unemployment rates, private-sector-only jobs or seasonally adjusted series.

The metric does not measure job quality, wages, full-time versus part-time mix, industry composition, resident employment, unemployment, labor-force participation, cost of living or productivity. BLS notes that metro payroll data are counts of jobs by place of work and that estimates after the current benchmark are preliminary.

Main ranking table: Top 20 positive published BLS payroll-change estimates

The table is a single-source official dataset based on BLS metro-area payroll employment data. Use the controls to search by metro area, filter by region or status, and compare published percent-change estimates or absolute job gains. Statistical-significance interpretation comes from the BLS release summary, not from rank alone.

This dataset contains official_value rows only; no official_forecast or modeled_projection rows are included.

Source snapshot: BLS Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment, April 2026 results, last modified June 3, 2026. Values are official observed estimates, not forecasts or projections. BLS release-summary significance language should be read separately from this positive-estimate ranking.

Insights

The distribution shows why percent estimates, absolute job gains and BLS significance language must be read together. A metro can appear high in a positive-estimate table without being one of the areas that BLS highlighted as an over-the-year employment increase.

What It Means

For workers, a high published payroll-change estimate can indicate local hiring momentum, but it should not be treated as a stand-alone signal of a stronger labor market. Wage growth, unemployment, labor-force participation, housing costs and industry mix remain essential checks.

For employers and investors, the ranking is useful as a screening table for metro areas with positive BLS payroll estimates. It is not a statistical-significance table; the BLS release summary should be used to separate named over-the-year employment increases from estimates that may be essentially unchanged.

For public policy, the table helps identify where payroll estimates moved upward, but it does not show whether residents filled those jobs, whether gains were broad-based, or whether new positions were high-wage, full-time or resilient.

FAQ

Sources