Gallup job-creation index has Minnesota 6th; North Dakota tops list

Minnesota ranked sixth in a national look at job creation conducted by the Gallup Poll people.

The Gallup Job Creation Index shows North Dakota on top for the fifth consecutive year. Rhode Island had the lowest score.

Only four states and the District of Columbia were ahead of Minnesota in the 2013 index. The top 12:

• North Dakota — 40
• District of Columbia — 30
• South Dakota — 30
• Delaware — 29
• Nebraska — 29
• Minnesota — 28
• Texas — 27
• Michigan — 25
• Iowa — 25
• Arizona — 23
• Wisconsin — 23
• Hawaii — 23

The index is described as:

…a measure of net hiring, 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.”

Minnesota first appeared in the top tier of the index in 2012. And the index authors noted an interesting finding:

Three of the five states with the longest track records at the top of the state job creation ranking — North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska — are strongly Republican in party affiliation. All three states with a long track record (at least four years) at the bottom — Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York — are heavily Democratic. However, apart from this, there is little correspondence between net hiring and partisan affiliation in the states.