By Spencer Tierney | NerdWallet
Forget Silicon Valley. Arizona’s “Silicon Desert” is holding its own with companies such as Intel, Honeywell and Go Daddy, as well as many early-stage startups.
Jobs at tech companies, plus affordable rents and a rich culture make Arizona — and especially the Phoenix area — an attractive place for Millennials looking for a place to live and work, according to a new NerdWallet analysis.
Despite taking a direct hit during the Great Recession, Arizona added more than 63,000 jobs in 2014, with the biggest gains in leisure and hospitality, education, health services and professional and business services.
NerdWallet crunched the numbers for 44 cities in the state with populations over 17,000 to determine the best places for Millennials who are looking for a job. We ranked these cities based on job availability, Millennial growth and affordability. Even though there’s no official definition for the term “millennial,” for the purposes of our calculations, we counted people ages 20-34 as part of this group.
