NEW YORK–Olympia, Wash., is the best market in the country to be a teller at a financial institution, according to a new analysis.
ValuePenguin.com reviewed data from 395 cities and towns to give tellers, both present and future, a better of idea of where it’s better to work and live.
According to ValuePenguin.com, the 514,520 tellers employed in the U.S. in 2014 earned $26,650 on average, or an hourly wage of $12.81, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Tellers’ cost of living and location quotient are also highly dependent on where they work. “These are the three important metrics that ValuePenguin used to determine what U.S. cities are the best places for these specialized professionals to call home,” the company said.
According to Value Penguin, the top five markets in which to work as a teller are:
- Olympia, Wash. Washington state’s capital comes in at No. 1, in part, because its employed tellers earn the highest annual average salary in the country ($33,750). “This helped Olympia overcome the highest cost of living among our top five; it’s 14% more expensive to live here than a given American city,” the company said.
- Waterbury, Conn. ValuePenguin noted that many of the 410 tellers in Waterbury work at Webster Bank’s headquarters.
- Longview, Wash. Just an hour from Olympia, ValuePenguin noted that Longview made the list despite having the fewest amount of teller positions (220). The city does have the state’s sixth-highest salary ($31,840) for the job, plus the same cost of living of the average American city, the analysis said.
- Miami. “Miami, paired here with nearby Miami Beach and Kendall in terms of its data collection, has by far the most positions (5,560) among these top five cities,” according to the analysis. “Chicago (13,060), Los Angeles (13,270) and New York (19,120) have even more employment, but tellers represent a smaller percentage of the overall workforce in those similarly big cities, meaning that there is less demand for their expertise. Miami, which is one of seven Florida cities to crack the overall top 15.”
- Pensacola, Fla. “Two cities in the same state can’t be further away than the 675 miles that separate Miami from Pensacola, but they’re much closer in their favorability for tellers. The latter, westernmost city in the state takes the final spot on our national list because it ranked first in location quotient, so demand for tellers may be higher here than anywhere else. “
The full survey and findings can be found here.