If you are a young professional looking for a place with great job prospects or a small business that is planning to set up shop in a booming area, then you may want to look at which states are growing the most jobs. According to the Gallup Job Creation Index, Washington, D.C., was the second highest job creating state of 2013.
North Dakota topped the list for the fifth consecutive year, while Texas was among the top 5 for the fifth consecutive year. The District of Columbia has been in the top group each of the past four years, since 2010.
Rounding out the top states for job creation are South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Iowa along with Delaware, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Hawaii all making their first appearance as top job creators.
Rhode Island, New York, Connecticut, North Carolina, and New Hampshire were among the states at the bottom of the list. In fact, two states–Rhode Island and Connecticut–have the “unwanted distinction of appearing in the bottom tier for job creation every year since 2008.†New York has been in the low-ranking group each of the past four years.
Also, at the bottom were Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and North Carolina as well as for the first year, Kentucky, Alabama, and Arkansas.
Gallup’s Job Creation Index is a measure of net hiring. The score is determined by asking full- and part-time U.S. workers, aged 18 and older, whether their employer is hiring new people and expanding the size of its workforce, not changing the size of its workforce, or letting people go and reducing the size of its workforce. The index score is the difference between reported “hiring” and “letting go.”
Nationally, job creation was fairly flat in 2013, with Gallup’s overall Job Creation Index inching up two points. The good news is that it has recovered from the net-negative reading Gallup recorded in 2009, and since then nearly all states have shown substantial improvement in job creation.