The Wall Street Journal released its ranking of the hottest US job markets.

In conjunction with Moody’s Analytics and assessed data from 381 different metro areas, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) recently released its ranking of the hottest US job markets for 2020. Austin, Texas figures at the lead for the second consecutive year as workers find the vibrant cultural and music capital an attractive option thanks to low unemployment and high wage growth.

Austin has managed to hook some of the most impressive (and high-paying) tech employers in the country, per Morning Brew, as Apple’s building a $1 billion campus that will employ up to 15,000 people…on top of the 7,000 Austinites already on Apple payroll.

Nashville, Tennessee jumped to the No. 2 spot from seventh, where it was last year, as it has improved in both low unemployment and high labor-force growth. These top two cities anchor metropolitan areas of around two million people.

With cities being scored based on five metrics: unemployment rate, labor-force participation, job growth, labor-force growth and wage growth, Denver, with a high labor force participation, moved up in the ranks to third place from ninth. Seattle and San Francisco, who have proven strong momentum, also moved up to round out the top five large metropolitan areas for job growth.

The rest of the job market rankings for U.S. metros with 1+ million people looks like this:

1. Austin, TX,
2. Nashville, TN
3. Denver, CO (it was ninth last year)
4. Seattle, WA
5. San Francisco, CA
6. Salt Lake City, UT
7. Raleigh, NC
8. Orlando, FL
9. Dallas, TX
10. San Jose, CA

Smaller hubs

The WSJ also ranked cities with a population of fewer than one million. Boulder, Colorado, ranked No. 1 on that list, but two other Texas cities, Midland and Odessa, followed in second and third, respectively.