{"id":294716,"date":"2026-06-03T18:20:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T18:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/294716\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T18:20:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T18:20:14","slug":"tampa-bay-area-soars-in-labor-market-for-college-grads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/294716\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay area soars in labor market for college grads"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">College graduates across the country are embarking on the next chapter in their lives.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">That step can look different for all kinds of students, whether that\u2019s furthering their education, taking time for themselves, or venturing out for a full-time gig.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The mission to secure a job can come with hurdles, especially with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tampabay.com\/news\/education\/2026\/05\/12\/ucf-florida-commencement-speaker-ai-nvidia\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:the rise of artificial intelligence;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;the rise of artificial intelligence&quot;}\" class=\"link \">the rise of artificial intelligence<\/a>. But where they look can play a bigger factor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In a recent study, Tampa Bay ranks second in U.S. metro areas where graduates are most likely to be hired.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adpresearch.com\/research\/2026-youve-graduated-now-what#section-methodology\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:ADP Research;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;ADP Research&quot;}\" class=\"link \">ADP Research<\/a> compared 53 U.S. metro areas with populations of at least one million residents, ranking three characteristics: wages, hiring rates and affordability.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Here\u2019s a closer look at Tampa Bay and other Florida areas standings.<\/p>\n<p>Tampa Bay moves up the hiring charts<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In 2025, the region ranked 26th on ADP Research\u2019s list. This area is now the runner-up as a graduate-hiring hot spot, moving from the 54th percentile to 98th.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Why the change? In the research sample, the Tampa Bay area\u2019s hiring rate increased from 2.6% to 3.4%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The typical local worker pulls in a salary of$49,817, the study said, using data to estimate median wages for workers aged 20 to 29.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Several other Florida cities didn\u2019t fare as well in the rankings. Orlando fell out of ADP Research\u2019s top 10, where it had placed in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adpresearch.com\/research\/youve-graduated-now-what-2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:last year\u2019s study;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;last year\u2019s study&quot;}\" class=\"link \">last year\u2019s study<\/a>, dropping from the 85th percentile to 63rd. Jacksonville and Miami also took a dip.<\/p>\n<p>A look at the rest of the U.S. metro areas<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The top four metro areas for new graduates are completely different from ADP Research\u2019s 2025 study.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The bottom four metro areas for new graduates:<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"College graduates across the country are embarking on the next chapter in their lives. That step can look&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[13364,9545,135,1526,9019,137,136],"class_list":["post-294716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-college-graduates","tag-metro-areas","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-bay-area","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}