Jobs Creation by State
Annual job creation numbers show that the growth in the number of jobs gained in the United States has fluctuated since 2011. In 2021, the most recent year analyzed, 12.45 million jobs were added to the economy—a seven-year low.
What do the figures look like on a state level? Here are some job creation statistics by state.
Jobs creation by state: top 10
The latest report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that California tops the chart ranking job creation by state in Q4 2022. That quarter, 1.01 million jobs were created, and California was the only state to exceed the one million mark.
California’s spot on this list of states ranked by job creation should come as no surprise. It’s the state with the highest number of small businesses and also ranks among the best states to start a business.
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Texas is in second place, creating 709,243 jobs in Q4 2022. This is followed by Florida, with 527,992. New York and Pennsylvania round out the top five, with 476,570 and 289,557 jobs created, respectively.
Here are numbers six to 10 on the list sorting job creation by state:
- Illinois: 279,561
- Ohio: 277,230
- Georgia: 267,138
- New Jersey: 243,710
- North Carolina: 236,909
Incidentally, nine of these top 10 states are among the 10 most populous states in the US.
States ranked by job creation: bottom 10
This list of job creation by state shows that the bottom 10 is led by Montana. In Q4 2022, the Treasure State added 38,132 jobs—just 3.8% of the number of jobs gained in California.
West Virginia ranks next, with 36,005. The remaining states created fewer than 35,000 jobs each in Q4 2022. Hawaii gained 30,523 new jobs, while Rhode Island, the smallest US state in terms of size, gained 29,126 new jobs. Delaware is next, after having created 26,573 jobs in the final quarter of last year.
Alaska follows, with 26,232 jobs added, just a fraction more than South Dakota, which ranks next, with 23945. North Dakota follows, adding 21764 new jobs. Wyoming and Vermont are the states with the lowest number of job gains in Q4 2022. Both added fewer than 20,000 new jobs that quarter.
Together, the number of jobs added by these bottom 10 states in Q4 2022 total 270,946, around one-quarter of what California created.