Wisconsin ranked as a top state in perceived job creation Wednesday for the first time in a national Gallup survey.
Gallup’s Job Creation Index was created in 2008 and measures a business’s “net hiring” by asking full and part-time workers how their employer is changing the size of the business’s workforce. The index score is the difference between reported hiring and firing.
The index places Wisconsin in the “top tier” with 23 points. Wisconsin ranks eleventh out of the top 12 states, while Minnesota ranks sixth with 28 points.
Net hiring was relatively stable in most states and increased slightly nationally in 2013, rising an average of two points.
The “good news” about the national average is the recovery from a net-negative 2009 reading, according to the report. Since then, nearly all states have shown “substantial” improvement.
The report also shows the index average has remained stable in 2014, but important state-level shifts could change the average.
