Currently, 20 cities in the United States and Canada — narrowed down from an original list of 238 — are waiting for Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to announce the location of his company’s new headquarters. Anticipation of the announcement is well warranted. The facility is expected to bring 50,000 new jobs to the chosen home city.

A healthy job market is the backbone of any thriving city. Across a population, a strong labor market can create a virtuous economic cycle, reducing financial hardship, fueling consumer spending, and attracting new residents.

The United States is in the midst of unprecedented employment growth. The U.S. economy added 134,000 new jobs in September 2018, marking the 96th consecutive month of job growth. In the last five years alone, the number of Americans with a job climbed by 11.2 million, or 7.8%.

While steady employment gains are breaking records on a national level, there are parts of the country where employment is growing even more rapidly — in some cases double the U.S. job growth rate.

24/7 Wall St. reviewed five-year changes in employment — the number of people employed — at the metro area level to identify the cities adding the most jobs. Over the past half decade, overall employment rose anywhere from 15.0% to 28.3% in the 31 cities on this list. These cities are almost entirely concentrated in the Southern and Western United States.

Click here to see the cities adding the most jobs.
Click here to read our detailed findings and methodology.