PRINCETON, N.J., March 27 (UPI) -- Houston topped the country in a list of cities posting a net positive number of employers hiring in 2012, researchers at Gallup said Wednesday.
In Houston, 45 percent of workers in a survey indicated their employer was hiring, while 12 percent indicated their employer was shrinking payrolls, Gallup said.
The difference was a net positive number of 33 for Houston, which had the widest positive gap among the country's 50 largest cities between companies hiring and companies letting workers go.
The cities with the five highest net positive Job Creation Index included Houston; Columbus, Ohio; Orlando, Fla.; Charlotte, N.C.; and Salt Lake Cit.
None of those cities were among the top five in 2012, except for Orlando.
At the other end of the spectrum, Riverside, Calif., had the lowest Job Creation index among the 50 latest cities, followed by San Diego; New York; Jacksonville, Fla.; and Buffalo, N.Y.
Two of those cities -- Buffalo and New York -- were among the bottom five in 2012.
Although posting the lowest five index numbers, all of the 50 cities included in the survey posted net positive numbers, Gallup said.
Across the country, the net score was 18 with 35 percent of employers hiring and 17 percent cutting back on payrolls, Gallup said.
Gallup said the results of the survey are based between 663 and 8,837 interviews per city as part of the firm's 2012 Daily Tracking survey. The results of the survey include a margin of error of 3-5 percentage points.
