Gallup: R.I. among worst states for job creation

PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island ranks among the worst states for job creation, according to Gallup’s annual ranking of state job markets in 2014.
Connecticut ranked last, as workers there reported the worst hiring climate. Rhode Island tied for 45th with New York, Alabama, Kentucky and Vermont.
The best job climate was in North Dakota, where employed residents provided a “strongly upbeat report on hiring conditions where they work.”
Gallup’s job creation index was derived from full- and part-time workers’ reports of whether their employer is hiring and expanding its workforce, and not reducing it. Gallup used 201,254 telephone interviews with employed adults nationwide throughout the year to determine the rankings.
The margins of error for individual states were no greater than six percentage points.
Forty-eight percent of workers in North Dakota said their employer is hiring, with 12 percent reporting reductions, resulting in a job creation score of 36, the highest in the nation. More than 600 interviews were conducted.
Connecticut’s 16 index score reflects 33 percent of workers saying their employer is hiring and 17 percent letting go, based on 2,503 interviews.
Rhode Island’s score was 21, with 36 percent saying their employer is hiring, and 15 percent saying their employer is letting employees go. That was based on 691 employee interviews.
Oher states where workers reported positive net hiring included Texas, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Iowa and South Dakota – all states that rely on either the energy sector or farming commodities, or both.
Gallup said that Connecticut and Rhode Island tie for compiling the worst collective job creation scores since 2008 and are the only states to have ranked in the bottom 10 each year.
Connecticut’s position at the bottom of the list in 2014 highlights that four of the six New England states had among the lowest job creation index scores last year. In addition to Rhode Island and Vermont at No. 45, Maine was No. 47. All four also ranked in the bottom 10 in 2013.
“New Hampshire has occasionally appeared in the bottom tier for job creation, leaving Massachusetts as the sole New England state that has avoided this unwelcome distinction,” according to Gallup.