Virginia Beach still has one of the country’s best climates for job seekers in 2022, but the city has considerably more competition than it did last year.

Every January, personal finance website Wallethub attempts to find America’s best job markets for job seekers, and this year they looked at the 180 largest cities in the country. They used 31 different indicators to compare the cities, with the heaviest-weighted metrics being job opportunities, employment growth, unemployment rate, employment outlook, workers in poverty, and share of fully vaccinated residents.

This year’s top city for job seekers is Columbia, MD, ahead of Salt Lake City in 2nd, and San Francisco in 3rd. Virginia Beach is the 33rd best city for finding a job right now. While it remains in the top twenty percent, it’s not quite the lofty heights we were at when the writers called us the 3rd best city for finding a job just last year. Chesapeake has seen a similar drop, having fallen from 7th to 66th. Everyone’s allowed a dip in form occasionally.

While the lower rankings may reflect a less impressive climate by some metrics, Virginia Beach is tied with Columbia and several other cities (including Chesapeake) for the highest median income in the country. Unemployment is still low at 3.4%, and more good news came the first day of year when the state’s minimum wage climbed to $11/hour. The state plans to gradually increase the minimum wage over the next few years to eventually reach $15/hour in 2026.