Despite a higher unemployment rate this year, Peoria still ranks in the top 20 nationally for graduates in STEM -- or science, technology, engineering and math -- to live.
That’s the findings of a recent study from the San Francisco-based finance company, Nerd-Wallet. The fourth annual report ranked Peoria 13 out of 330 places nationwide.
It’s a slight decline compared to last year, but he says the city’s relatively low cost of living was significant in its high ranking.
This is first year the company factored unemployment rates into the study. Senior Analyst Sreekar Jasthi says that had a significant effect on Peoria’s standings this year.
“That’s obviously one of the metrics that Peoria, compared to the rest of the top-ranked cities, didn’t score very well in because of the relatively high rates of unemployment there more recently,” Jasthi said.
Peoria slid down a spot on the rankings, compared to last year. But on the brighter side, Jasthi says, Peoria scored high in the cost of living metric, compared to other top-ranked places like San Francisco, Boulder and Santa Clara.
Peoria’s year-over-year unemployment rate rose nearly 1.5 percent in January to 8.6 percent.
Jasthi says the rankings were determined by the metrics measuring the numbers of STEM-related jobs in a community, average annual salaries, medium monthly rent and unemployment rates.