Only 1 Calif. city cracks Glassdoor's 'Best Cities for Jobs' list; Midwest dominates

25. Charlotte, North Carolina ● Glassdoor City Score (out of 5): 3.9 ● Job Openings: 55,030 ● Median Base Salary: $48,000 ● Job Satisfaction Rating (out of 5): 3.4 ● Median Home Value: $195,800 ● Hot Jobs: Data Scientist, Business Analyst, Project Manager

less 25. Charlotte, North Carolina ● Glassdoor City Score (out of 5): 3.9 ● Job Openings: 55,030 ● Median Base Salary: $48,000 ● Job Satisfaction Rating (out of 5): 3.4 ● Median Home Value: $195,800 ... more Photo: Digidreamgrafix/Getty Images/iStockphoto Photo: Digidreamgrafix/Getty Images/iStockphoto Image 1 of / 30 Caption Close Only 1 Calif. city cracks Glassdoor's 'Best Cities for Jobs' list; Midwest dominates 1 / 30 Back to Gallery

If you move to San Francisco, you might find a job. Securing affordable housing is another matter.

That largely accounts for the reason San Francisco placed 22nd — behind cities like Detroit and Columbus, Ohio — on Glassdoor's annual ranking of the "25 Best Cities for Jobs."

San Francisco fared better than every other major metro in California. It was the only Golden State city to make the list.

Glassdoor, a Mill Valley-based job listing site, curates its annual list by calculating each region's "city score," a five-point ranking that equally weighs three factors: hiring opportunity, cost of living and job satisfaction. When one of these factors skews low, it can pull the rest of the ranking down with it. Hence, you get a situation in which San Francisco, a city with a 2.4 percent unemployment rate (the national average is about 4.0), just barely cracks the top-25.

Technology hubs like New York City, Los Angeles and San Jose also failed to make the ranking, "primarily due to the high cost of living," a Glassdoor press release said.

San Francisco boasted a total city score of 3.9 thanks to its 193,262 current job openings and a high job satisfaction rating of 3.6. The median base salary in the city is $80,000, Glassdoor reports.

The median base salary in the city at the top of Glassdoor's list – Pittsburgh — is nearly half of San Francisco's at $46,500. The difference in ranking is a matter of home values. In Pittsburgh, the median home value is about $142,000. San Francisco's median home value is close to ten times the average salary.

St. Louis, Indianapolis, Cincinnati followed Pittsburgh on the list. Each Midwestern city is similar in that it offers a number of job openings and high workplace satisfaction, coupled with low median home values.

Glassdoor is not the first to grumble of a "tech exodus" from Silicon Valley to the Midwestern United States.

MBA BY THE BAY: See how an MBA could change your life with SFGATE's interactive directory of Bay Area programs.

"Silicon Valley is kind of crazy now," said Mark Kvamme, a top venture capitalist in the region, in a 2017 New York Times story. The piece claimed Silicon Valley tech executives and investors had finally "discovered" the Midwest — and planned to pull their companies out of California and drop them in the middle of the country, like their assets are stuffed animals in a giant claw arcade game.

Inklings of a massive Bay Area exodus seem to be more like wishful thinking on the part of current residents bedraggled by housing costs. The most recent data on regional migration trends suggests tech isn't going anywhere — at least for now.

See Glassdoor's full Top 25 Cities for Jobs ranking in the above gallery.

Read Michelle Robertson's latest stories and send her news tips at mrobertson@sfchronicle.com.

Start receiving breaking news emails on wildfires, civil emergencies, riots, national breaking news, Amber Alerts, weather emergencies, and other critical events with the SFGATE breaking news email. Click here to make sure you get the news.