10 Worst Cities for Finding a Job

If you're looking for a job any time soon, don't go packing your bags and moving to California. Four of the ten worst cities for employment are located in the Golden State. But the dishonor of the absolute worst metropolitan area for getting hired goes to none other than the New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island area.

Employment services firm Manpower polled almost 20,000 employers nationwide to find the worst cities for jobs in the spring of 2011, andForbes.com recently published the list. The good news is that employers in 33 out of 50 states said they had very positive hiring intentions.

But certain cities within those states were not so optimistic. Both upstate New York and the Manhattan area have cities on the worst list. Rochester ties for no. 8 with Worcester, MA and Santa Rosa, Petaluma, CA. And the New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island area actually expects to lose more jobs than it gains this spring.

At least some areas in California are more promising. No cities in the Bay Area, where the tech industry is flourishing, made the ten worst list, and San Diego area is absent from the list as well. Also, the Riverside-San Bernardino metro-area, known as the Inland Empire, notorious for being one of the areas hardest hit by unemployment, is not among the worst ten.

But the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana area ties with Bakersfield and Dayton, OH for the number five spot; Fresno ties with Des Moines for number three, and as previously mentioned, Santa Rosa-Petaluma ties for number eight.

Still, none of these areas are as bad as the New York Metro area, according to the information complied by Manpower. A paltry 11 percent of those employers surveyed in that area say they expect to hire new employees, while 13 percent plan lay-offs.

If you're living in New York and are uncertain about your future employment prospects, you might consider looking in the Minneapolis area -- that's got the rosiest job outlook in the nation right now. You also might want to consider checking out the 10 Best List if you live in any of the following areas:

1. New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island

2. Raleigh-Cary, N.C.

3. Des Moines, Iowa (tie)

3. Fresno, Calif.(tie)

5. Dayton, Ohio (tie)

5. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, Calif. (tie)

5. Bakersfield, Calif. (tie)

8. Worcester, Mass (tie)

8. Santa Rosa-Petaluma, CA (tie)

8. Rochester, NY (tie)