There is more gloomy news for New York City and state residents. The United States is now enjoying impressive job growth, with more than 263,000 new jobs in April alone. The nation is also experiencing the lowest unemployment rate since December 1969. This does not, however affect each city and state in the country. Notably, NYS and NYC have yet to reap the bulk of the benefits.
WalletHub has compiled an official ranking of the Best and Worst States for Jobs, based on labor data from the 50 states. The list aims to help job searchers find an ideal work environment, based on 33 key indicators of job-market strength, opportunity and a healthy economy. NYS was ranked as number 20 out of 50. The survey provides isolated ‘job market’ ranking, in which NYS ranked at 8th place, and an overall ranking that combines job market data with “economic environment”, offering insight into how a state handles their labor force.
NYS ranked in 35th place after the ‘economic environment’ was factored in. The winner of best state for the overall rank was Massachusetts, followed by Washington, Colorado, Vermont, and in fifth place New Hampshire. In the ranking for ‘job market’ ranked independently, Massachusetts took first place, followed by Colorado, Vermont, Minnesota, and in fifth place New Hampshire. In the ‘Economic environment’ rank, Washington state was first, followed by New Jersey in second place, Texas, Wyoming, and then North Dakota at fifth.
In the economic environment study, researchers compared several economic factors, more heavily weighting influences that would greatly impact a job seeker’s decision to settle somewhere, such as median annual income, state-income tax burdens and job security; and less weight to variables like job satisfaction and employee benefits.
The most job opportunities were found in New Hampshire, followed by North Dakota, then Iowa, Vermont in fourth place and Hawaii in fifth place. Distinguished for having the highest “Median Annual Income” was Virginia in first place, followed by Utah, Minnesota, New Jersey and Maryland in fifth place.
NYS did manage to top the “Worst State” list, for “longest time spent commuting”, in which NYS came in at number 50. The state was also ranked dead last at number 50 for worse state for having the lowest “median annual income”.
NYC fared even worse. Earlier in the year, WalletHub ranked the “best cities for jobs”. In that list, New York City ranked at 85th place overall, out of 182 cities listed. NYC’s isolated job market rank was also 85th and its socio-economics rank was 86th place. Other cities in NY also fared poorly. Rochester, Yonkers and Buffalo were listed at numbers 146, 149 and 155, respectively.
