Shopping for work

Whole Foods rings up top honor in ranking of best employers for grads

Whole Foods Market flagship store in Austin

Whole Foods Market is among the best employers for new workers.

Photo courtesy of Whole Foods Market

You already know you can shop for everything from cauliflower pizza crust to kombucha at Whole Foods Market, but have you thought about shopping for a job, too? Well, if you’re a recent graduate, maybe you should.

A new ranking from Forbes and Statista puts the Austin-based grocery chain atop the list of the best employers in the U.S. for new grads. Whole Foods knocked Trader Joe’s off its No. 1 perch from 2019, pushing it into second place this year. On last year’s list, Whole Foods sat 39 rungs below where it stands now.

Forbes praises Amazon-owned Whole Foods for giving its full-time frontline workers a $500 bonus amid the COVID-19 pandemic and offering a 100 percent match of employee donations made to a fund aimed at helping coworkers who are struggling financially. Forbes also lauds Whole Foods’ career development initiatives, volunteer programs, and environmentally friendly practices.

Whole Foods employs about 2,400 people at its Austin headquarters and its local stores.

To create the list, which was published September 16, Statista surveyed 20,000 Americans with less than 10 years of experience working for businesses with at least 1,000 employees. Workers rated their employers on a variety of criteria, including workplace safety, competitiveness of compensation, advancement opportunities, effectiveness of diversity and inclusion efforts, and openness to telecommuting. Statista then asked workers how likely they’d be to recommend their employer to others, and to nominate employers in industries outside their own. The final list ranks the 250 employers that earned the most recommendations.

Whole Foods isn’t the only Austin company to appear in the top 25. Austin-based Keller Williams Realty holds down the No. 25 spot. Two other Texas-based employers are in the top 25: Dallas’ Southwest Airlines (No. 11) and San Antonio’s USAA (No. 18).

Facebook, which is based in California, but operates a large office in downtown Austin, also made the list at No. 20.

rankings forbes lists

Study This

Austin is the No. 7 most educated city in the country, says Forbes

Photo by Dan Dennis on Unsplash

UT Austin gets a lot of praise, but this study includes degrees from everywhere — as long as the recipient lives in Texas.

Austin and San Antonio don't get all the same opportunities as the even larger cities in Texas, but in a recent study they prove they're prepared. Both made the top 10 in Forbes Advisor's "Most Educated Cities In The U.S." list: San Antonio was No. 4, and Austin was No. 7.

Other Texas cities made the list of 100, but some fell surprisingly far behind. Dallas made No. 20, followed by Houston at No. 79 and Fort Worth at No. 93. In some even more surprising twists, the smaller city of Garland was the fourth in Texas at No. 26, and El Paso, Corpus Christi, and Laredo all beat Houston.

This study compared the 100 largest cities in the country as of the 2021 census, using metrics like high school dropout rate, percentage of adults age 25 and older with some college, but no degree, undergraduate college completion rate, and percentage of adults age 25 and older with an advanced degree. There were also some lower-weighted metrics about equity, studying racial and gender college completion gaps.

Although many education studies fall into praising the University of Texas, this one considers education as a whole — while still mentioning the university once.

In San Antonio, the bachelor’s completion rate for people 25 and up was 67.30 percent, and 29.56 percent of people in that age group have advanced degrees. The study doesn't have much to say about educational opportunities in the city, focusing instead of its tourist potential. But it did note that the city had one of the smallest racial gaps for higher ed, which was only -5.49 percent. Its gender gap was 0.97 percent, and its high school dropout rate was 4.53 percent.

San Antonio's Trinity University did great in a Niche study that came out in early September. It was the No. 18 best small college in America, and topped the list entirely in Texas. Among bigger fish, it was also the No. 20 best liberal arts college in the country (and again the best in Texas), and made No. 4 in general for best colleges in Texas.

In Austin, 59.89 of people 25 or older completed Bachelor's degrees, and 22.76 percent completed advanced degrees. The racial gap was much worse at -10.87 percent. Its gender gap was a bit less than San Antonio's, at 0.69 percent, and its high school dropout rate was more at 7.56 percent.

Of course, this is where the study mentions UT, which is based in Austin. It made WalletHub's 2024 ranking of the best colleges and universities in Texas and earned the No. 2 spot; clinched the No. 6 spot in Niche's ranking of the best public universities in the country; and earned No. 2 in a list of best undergraduate programs for entrepreneurs by the Princeton Review, among other accolades.

Just breaking into the top 20, Dallas' Bachelor's degree completion rate was 57.05 percent, with 21.37 percent attaining advanced degrees. The racial and gender gaps were −14.99 percent and 1.64 percent, respectively. Much further down the list, Houston's Bachelor's degree completion rate was only 32.99 percent, and only 10.97% achieved advanced degrees. High school dropouts were at 8.90 percent, and the racial and gender gaps were −4.99 and 2.10 percent respectively.

Here are all the Texas cities on the list of 100, in order from most to least educated:

4. San Antonio
7. Austin
20. Dallas
26. Garland
49. El Paso
59. Corpus Christi
76. Laredo
79. Houston
81. Arlington
83. Irving

More information on the study by Forbes advisor, including full city rankings and expanded methodology, is available at forbes.com.

education universities