Best Cities to Land a Summer Job in Montana

Montana is not known for being a state with a lot of job opportunities. For the past several years, Montana's population has increased and many of the newcomers are people who have remote jobs working somewhere else, but living here.

That being said, a fair number of companies and organizations started in Montana, and there are efforts to make Montana more of a technology hub.

But what Montana does seem to have a lot of is interesting summer jobs. The opportunities to work outdoors during the summer are plentiful with two national parks, national forests, and state parks.

It makes sense, then, that two Montana cities would appear on a list of the best cities in America to find a summer job. WalletHub's list includes 182 cities and the two in Montana that are on the list, Missoula and Billings, are also in the top 100.

They ranked cities based on the Youth Job Market and the Social Environment & Affordability, with subfactors looking at employment rates, job and internship availability, and pay, among other things.

Here’s how Missoula Ranked:

Overall: 58
Youth Job Market: 40
Social Environment & Affordability: 111

Here’s how Billings Ranked:

Overall: 74
Youth Job Market: 99
Social Environment & Affordability: 34

An interesting detail of the Youth Job Market shows that Missoula is ranked 2nd for its labor-force participation rate, meaning quite a few people aged 16-24 have jobs in Missoula. Given that it's home to the University of Montana, those statistics likely reflect the number of students who stay in Missoula for the summer and get a job.

It's also interesting that Billings ranks higher than Missoula for the Social Environment and Affordability. Even though it's apparent that Billings is more affordable than Missoula, this category also looked at public transportation and friendliness in terms of how fun the city is, how active the city is, and whether or not the city is good for singles.

Most Montanas would probably think Missoula would rank higher for being fun, active, and good for singles.