What cities are likely to have a future labor shortage? (find a job, university)

[lovecrowds]

I was curious what cities are likely to have a future labor shortage similar to Williston, ND did last year.

I know there are many cities on the plains and up in New England with very low unemployment rates but that doesn't always mean a labor shortage in the area.

Sometimes it seems like low unemployment rate don't mean much. I was Laramie, WY when they had a 3 percent unemployment rate and I could not find a job at all. I was told that there is no reason to be there if not working for the University of Wyoming.

On the other hand I ended up getting the best job I had in 2011 in Ogden, Utah during the gripes of the great recession in a very economically depressed area. Although Ogden has improved drastically since then.

I have done some research and the only city that have news articles about labor shortages is the Sioux Falls area.

[kyle19125]

Denver is at 3% unemployment with some outlying areas like Boulder and Fort Collins below that, so one can see cities like those hitting shortages soon in some fields if not already. Honolulu is at 3% also and due to geography another obvious candidate I think.

[Prickly Pear]

The thing is you need a city that's relatively small in general (even if NYC had a really small unemployment rate, the unemployment numbers are probably still high even then), has a low unemployment rate, and could "potentially" be a boom area.

Some industries can realistically be located anywhere. Like tech for an example. Some... Like O&G, cannot. Industries that can be anywhere, like the tech industry, generally pick certain locations that can help them recruit employees (like SF is a popular city) yet O&G needs to be where the O&G are found... In the majority of cases, these aren't where the "popular" cities are... Except maybe Houston which is kind of a popular city because of O&G. In other words, industries like O&G are more likely to transform an area to a labor shortage. Places that generally are low unemployment rates aren't necessarily popular areas where tech can attract the engineers they need.

So if we brainstorm what industries need to be in certain locations, usually resource-based ones, and then think of places where these industries ideally could be (as not all resources are everywhere), then we can think of some places.

[HumpDay]

Rust Belt cities and in the Northeast where some medium sized cities are declining.

[SyraBrian]

The Twin Cities are around 3.5% unemployment with an over 70% labor force participation rate.