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 Q1 2023. That quarter, 950,611 jobs were created, and California was the only state to exceed the 900,000 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 693,258 jobs in Q1 2023. This is followed by Florida, with 536,274. New York and Illinois round out the top five, with 519,705 and 302,001 jobs created, respectively.
Here are numbers six to 10 on the list sorting job creation by state:
- Pennsylvania: 291,327
- Ohio: 276,221
- North Carolina: 263,089
- Georgia: 257,840
- New Jersey: 225,314
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 West Virginia. In Q1 2023, the Mountain State added 38,724 jobs—just 4.1% of the number of jobs gained in California.
Montana ranks next, with 36,820. The remaining states created fewer than 35,000 jobs each in Q1 2023. Rhode Island, the smallest US state in terms of size, gained 31,968 new jobs, while Hawaii gained 28,383 new jobs. South Dakota is next, after having created 27,136 jobs in the first quarter of 2023.
Delaware follows, with 26,861 jobs added, just a fraction more than North Dakota, which ranks next, with 26,282. Alaska is next, having added 25,502 new jobs. Vermont and Wyoming are the states with the lowest number of job gains in Q1 2023. Both added just around 20,000 new jobs that quarter.
Together, the number of jobs added by these bottom 10 states in Q1 2023 total 270,946, around one-third of what California created.