If you had paid attention to the myriad advertisements and mailers distributed up to last year’s election day, you might have been confused into thinking that Scottsdale is in a downward spiral of sorts, with serious fiscal and social issues threatening to take the city down. To oust an incumbent you need to make a case that things are going in the wrong direction, which many of the city’s new leaders effectively did; according to 2024 polling, Republicans were nearly split on whether the city was going in the right direction and the wrong direction.
That said, data doesn’t lie (although it can be manipulated), and recent data implies that Scottsdale is absolutely exemplary in at least one category as per a recent report.
According to a recent report from WalletHub, Scottsdale is the top city in the country to find a job. In a testament to the state’s currently robust hiring market, both Chandler and Tempe are also in the top 10.
As with any ranking, the methodology is a crucial component; are they using the right metrics? Are they weighing them correctly? In this case the metrics are extremely varied and even but with job opportunities, employment growth, the employment outlook and the unemployment rate having a higher weighting. Various socioeconomic metrics are also weighed, albeit to a lesser degree.
With 31 different metrics at play and most of them equal-weighted, one could pick apart the methodology and consider it too watered down and without an emphasis on important items. That said, no one could call it lazy or thoughtless!
And it’s not hard to see how Scottsdale ranks this high. It has managed to become a bit of a small scale tech hub of sorts, with numerous companies moving their headquarters and hundreds, if not thousands of jobs, to the city. With a low tax level, a light, business-friendly regulatory framework, an educated workforce and an excellent lifestyle, the city (and the state more overarchingly) has become an ideal place to move your business.
While the new set of city leaders may have won their seats because of purported discontent, it appears as though they find themselves in the enviable position of fixing a city with very few things wrong with it, least of all the economy. Not a bad spot to be in.