Indianapolis Overview

While it got a brief boost from hosting the 2012 Super Bowl, the Indianapolis job market has reported mixed postrecession performance. A modest recovery is expected to lower unemployment, but job growth will still be below historic levels and unemployment will be above the norm.

Indianapolis Job Opportunities

Key business areas include advanced manufacturing, IT, clean tech and life sciences. Due to its central location, Indianapolis also counts logistics as a critical hiring sector. And as the site of the Indianapolis 500, the city boasts a strong motorsports industry as well.

The trade, transportation and utilities sector employs the greatest share (21 percent) of the city’s nearly 1 million workers. Other key industries include professional/business services, education/health services and government. While professional/business services, construction, and leisure and hospitality have grown recently, most other industries have shown sporadic monthly declines.

Indianapolis Employment Trends

Indianapolis job trends are improving. The unemployment rate, which peaked at 10 percent in early 2010, had fallen to 7.4 percent by May 2012. City payrolls, which declined for nearly two years, have been positive with mixed performance since mid-2010. Online hiring is close to prerecession levels.

Indianapolis jobs are expected to grow 1 percent between Q2 2012 and Q2 2013, below the 1.3 percent growth expected in the US job supply, Moody’s Analytics forecasts.