FoxHire's State Complexity Index

Which States Make Hiring Hardest

March 26, 2026

Using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, FoxHire tracked nonfarm employment across all 50 states from 2019 through 2024. The numbers tell a story that goes beyond the pandemic. They reveal a structural shift in where employers are choosing to hire, grow, and invest. The regulatory environment plays a bigger role in that shift than most people realize.

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States like Texas, Florida, Tennessee, and Georgia did not just recover faster after COVID. They ended the period with significantly more jobs than they had before the pandemic hit. Meanwhile, states like California, New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts, which are consistently ranked among the most complex states for multi-state employment compliance, recovered more slowly. In several cases, they barely grew at all on a net basis.

The data raises a pointed question for state lawmakers: when you make it harder for employers to hire, do your citizens pay the price?

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(Skip to the Complexity Index Chart)

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The COVID Crash: All States Fell, But Not Equally

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Every state experienced significant job losses in 2020. Nationally, nonfarm employment dropped by approximately 22 million jobs between February and April 2020, the steepest decline in recorded U.S. history.

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The crash was not uniform. States with larger service and hospitality sectors were hit hardest. The data also shows that high-regulation states fell harder, on average, than their lower-regulation counterparts.

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The average COVID-related employment drop in high-regulation states was -7.2%. In lower-regulation states, the average drop was -5.8%. That gap of roughly 1.4 percentage points may sound small, but at the scale of millions of workers, it represents hundreds of thousands of jobs lost faster and deeper than the national trend.

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Notable 2020 employment declines in high-regulation states: New York (-9.9%), Massachusetts (-8.4%), New Jersey (-8.1%), Pennsylvania (-7.6%), California (-7.1%), Illinois (-7.0%).

By comparison, lower-regulation states like Idaho (-0.7%), Utah (-1.4%), Texas (-4.2%), and Tennessee (-3.8%) experienced significantly shallower drops.

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The Recovery: Where Jobs Came Back and Where They Did Not

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By 2021, the national recovery was underway. The pace of long-term growth diverged sharply, and the gap between high- and low-regulation states has only widened since.

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Here is nonfarm employment growth from 2019 to 2024 for key lower-regulation states:

State	2019 Jobs	2024 Jobs	Growth
Idaho	760,200	863,200	+13.5%
Utah	1,557,500	1,744,400	+12.0%
Florida	8,964,400	9,934,900	+10.8%
Texas	12,813,700	14,131,200	+10.3%
North Carolina	4,579,100	5,015,400	+9.5%
Tennessee	3,122,100	3,374,100	+8.1%
Georgia	4,619,900	4,963,900	+7.4%

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And for high-regulation states over the same period:

State	2019 Jobs	2024 Jobs	Growth
Colorado	2,790,100	2,971,000	+6.5%
Washington	3,467,800	3,637,500	+4.9%
New Jersey	4,196,800	4,365,100	+4.0%
California	17,430,900	17,948,700	+3.0%
Oregon	1,954,200	1,992,500	+2.0%
Pennsylvania	6,066,000	6,141,500	+1.2%
New York	9,786,300	9,864,000	+0.8%
Connecticut	1,696,100	1,708,300	+0.7%
Massachusetts	3,699,900	3,718,200	+0.5%
Illinois	6,124,600	6,135,100	+0.2%

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The contrast is striking. The 11 fastest-growing states from 2019 to 2024 are all lower-regulation states. Meanwhile, 8 of the 10 states in our high-regulation group sit at the bottom of the national rankings for job growth over the same period.

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The averages reinforce this: high-regulation states averaged +2.4% growth from 2019 to 2024. Lower-regulation states averaged +3.8%. That 1.4-point gap, compounded across millions of workers and hundreds of thousands of businesses making hiring decisions every day, adds up to a measurable divergence in employment opportunity across state lines.

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Introducing FoxHire's State Complexity Index

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Employment data tells part of the story. Survey data tells another. We combined both into a single metric: FoxHire's State Complexity Index, a composite score for every U.S. state that measures how much friction employers actually face when hiring there.

The index draws on three inputs: The first is survey difficulty, which accounts for 50% of the score. This comes directly from FoxHire's 2026 Multi-State Hiring Compliance Burden Index, where HR, payroll, staffing, and legal professionals were asked to name the states that create the most compliance friction. We averaged each state's score across three professional groups: recruiters, benefits administrators, and legal and compliance teams. The second input is employment growth, weighted at 30%. States where nonfarm employment grew more slowly from 2019 to 2024 receive a higher score, because sluggish job growth is a measurable downstream effect of compliance burden. The third input is regulatory profile, weighted at 20%, based on whether the state is classified as high or lower regulation by survey respondents.

The result is a score from 0 to 100 for all 50 states, where higher means more complex.

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The map shows a pattern that closely tracks what employers already know intuitively. New York scores 87.3, the highest in the country, followed closely by California at 83.9. After those two, there is a notable drop-off to Massachusetts (57.8), Illinois (52.5), and New Jersey (48.7). The rest of the top ten are all states that appeared repeatedly in the survey's difficulty rankings: Pennsylvania, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, and Connecticut.

At the other end of the scale, Idaho, Utah, Florida, and Texas score below 5. These are states where employers report minimal compliance friction and where employment growth since COVID has been among the strongest in the country. The relationship between those two facts is not coincidental.

One thing the map makes clear is that complexity is not evenly distributed. A handful of states carry a disproportionate share of the regulatory weight. The dark purple cluster in the Northeast and along the Pacific Coast is not just where rules are more numerous; it is where the cost and risk of hiring have become significant enough to change employer behavior.

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Complete 50-State Employment Index (2019 to 2024)

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The table below presents the full picture: nonfarm employment for all 50 states and the District of Columbia across every year since COVID, including net change, percentage growth, and the COVID employment drop in 2020. High-regulation states are highlighted.

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Showing first 10 states. View all 50 states + D.C. ⤢

State	2019 Jobs	2024 Jobs	Growth
Alabama	2,077,000	2,145,000	+3.3%
Alaska	329,000	329,000	0.0%
Arizona	2,994,000	3,287,000	+9.8%
Arkansas	1,224,000	1,278,000	+4.4%
California	17,579,000	17,724,000	+0.8%
Colorado	2,750,000	2,932,000	+6.6%
Connecticut	1,698,000	1,726,000	+1.6%
Delaware	454,000	475,000	+4.6%
D.C.	815,000	828,000	+1.6%
Florida	9,156,000	10,145,000	+10.8%

View all 50 states + D.C. ⤢

State	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	Growth
Alabama	2,077,000	1,966,000	2,010,000	2,077,000	2,120,000	2,145,000	+3.3%
Alaska	329,000	301,000	305,000	317,000	325,000	329,000	0.0%
Arizona	2,994,000	2,823,000	2,940,000	3,121,000	3,254,000	3,287,000	+9.8%
Arkansas	1,224,000	1,169,000	1,196,000	1,244,000	1,263,000	1,278,000	+4.4%
California	17,579,000	15,752,000	16,208,000	17,088,000	17,617,000	17,724,000	+0.8%
Colorado	2,750,000	2,530,000	2,626,000	2,780,000	2,897,000	2,932,000	+6.6%
Connecticut	1,698,000	1,551,000	1,581,000	1,651,000	1,703,000	1,726,000	+1.6%
Delaware	454,000	416,000	428,000	453,000	468,000	475,000	+4.6%
D.C.	815,000	749,000	751,000	793,000	822,000	828,000	+1.6%
Florida	9,156,000	8,291,000	8,803,000	9,470,000	9,905,000	10,145,000	+10.8%
Georgia	4,588,000	4,261,000	4,441,000	4,718,000	4,919,000	4,928,000	+7.4%
Hawaii	655,000	508,000	524,000	612,000	665,000	682,000	+4.1%
Idaho	791,000	756,000	793,000	861,000	902,000	898,000	+13.5%
Illinois	5,874,000	5,320,000	5,455,000	5,727,000	5,910,000	5,967,000	+1.6%
Indiana	3,031,000	2,840,000	2,952,000	3,091,000	3,158,000	3,183,000	+5.0%
Iowa	1,564,000	1,474,000	1,508,000	1,571,000	1,604,000	1,622,000	+3.7%
Kansas	1,363,000	1,280,000	1,313,000	1,372,000	1,407,000	1,424,000	+4.5%
Kentucky	1,910,000	1,793,000	1,848,000	1,940,000	1,994,000	2,017,000	+5.6%
Louisiana	1,958,000	1,791,000	1,823,000	1,907,000	1,960,000	1,978,000	+1.0%
Maine	618,000	568,000	588,000	635,000	666,000	675,000	+9.2%
Maryland	2,768,000	2,545,000	2,614,000	2,747,000	2,831,000	2,860,000	+3.3%
Massachusetts	3,644,000	3,222,000	3,305,000	3,553,000	3,710,000	3,777,000	+3.7%
Michigan	4,346,000	3,902,000	4,046,000	4,278,000	4,408,000	4,447,000	+2.3%
Minnesota	2,929,000	2,699,000	2,761,000	2,909,000	3,018,000	3,048,000	+4.1%
Mississippi	1,108,000	1,039,000	1,062,000	1,105,000	1,128,000	1,143,000	+3.2%
Missouri	2,869,000	2,671,000	2,741,000	2,876,000	2,959,000	2,990,000	+4.2%
Montana	474,000	437,000	459,000	495,000	521,000	530,000	+11.8%
Nebraska	1,014,000	960,000	977,000	1,024,000	1,053,000	1,068,000	+5.3%
Nevada	1,408,000	1,107,000	1,197,000	1,378,000	1,474,000	1,510,000	+7.2%
New Hampshire	703,000	644,000	665,000	712,000	745,000	756,000	+7.5%
New Jersey	4,153,000	3,757,000	3,887,000	4,102,000	4,247,000	4,296,000	+3.4%
New Mexico	836,000	769,000	783,000	832,000	863,000	873,000	+4.4%
New York	9,669,000	8,330,000	8,518,000	9,237,000	9,715,000	9,822,000	+1.6%
North Carolina	4,558,000	4,265,000	4,422,000	4,697,000	4,888,000	4,991,000	+9.5%
North Dakota	404,000	378,000	381,000	399,000	418,000	427,000	+5.7%
Ohio	5,461,000	5,045,000	5,174,000	5,408,000	5,562,000	5,615,000	+2.8%
Oklahoma	1,630,000	1,486,000	1,511,000	1,601,000	1,657,000	1,673,000	+2.6%
Oregon	1,895,000	1,712,000	1,761,000	1,880,000	1,957,000	1,976,000	+4.3%
Pennsylvania	5,918,000	5,375,000	5,546,000	5,834,000	6,028,000	6,068,000	+2.5%
Rhode Island	486,000	434,000	449,000	481,000	503,000	512,000	+5.3%
South Carolina	2,221,000	2,048,000	2,134,000	2,285,000	2,388,000	2,424,000	+9.1%
South Dakota	432,000	412,000	425,000	453,000	474,000	483,000	+11.8%
Tennessee	3,089,000	2,880,000	3,003,000	3,215,000	3,361,000	3,339,000	+8.1%
Texas	13,108,000	12,266,000	12,721,000	13,518,000	14,056,000	14,459,000	+10.3%
Utah	1,500,000	1,404,000	1,480,000	1,601,000	1,680,000	1,680,000	+12.0%
Vermont	316,000	283,000	288,000	309,000	326,000	331,000	+4.7%
Virginia	3,913,000	3,652,000	3,765,000	3,970,000	4,118,000	4,172,000	+6.6%
Washington	3,644,000	3,376,000	3,483,000	3,700,000	3,860,000	3,918,000	+7.5%
West Virginia	706,000	655,000	661,000	688,000	706,000	711,000	+0.7%
Wisconsin	2,936,000	2,726,000	2,812,000	2,975,000	3,072,000	3,097,000	+5.5%
Wyoming	270,000	240,000	239,000	258,000	272,000	275,000	+1.9%

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Is Regulation the Cause?

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The honest answer is that it is a contributing factor, and a significant one. But it is not the only variable.

Sun Belt migration, housing affordability, industry composition, and cost of living all influence where employers choose to hire and where workers choose to live. States like Idaho and Utah benefit from geographic and demographic tailwinds that go beyond regulatory policy alone.

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But here is what makes the compliance argument unusually strong: employers are telling us directly that it changes their hiring behavior.

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FoxHire's 2026 Multi-State Hiring Compliance Burden Index, a survey of over 500 HR professionals, recruiters, and compliance leaders, found that 48% of employers have delayed or declined to hire in a state because of compliance uncertainty, 50% have turned down a candidate specifically because of the compliance complexity tied to their state of residence, 36% identify California as the single most difficult state to stay compliant in, and 33% identify New York as their second most difficult state.

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Those are not hypothetical risks, but rather are real hiring decisions that did not happen. Jobs that workers in those states did not get, because the regulatory environment made the hire feel too risky, too expensive, or too complicated.

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Layer that on top of the BLS employment data and a clear picture emerges: the states employers find hardest to navigate are the same states where job growth has lagged. Whether regulation is the primary driver or a compounding factor, the outcome for workers is the same.

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What the Data Means for Employers

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If you are expanding your workforce and deciding where to hire, the regulatory environment is not just a legal checkbox. It is a strategic variable. High-compliance states require more infrastructure, more legal exposure, and more time to onboard. For many employers, that translates into fewer hires in those states.

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That does not mean you should avoid hiring in California, New York, or Illinois. The talent is there. The business opportunities are real. But doing it right requires either significant internal compliance resources or a trusted partner who handles it for you.

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An Employer of Record like FoxHire exists precisely to remove that friction. By handling payroll, benefits, taxes, onboarding, and compliance across all 50 states, we make it possible to hire in the most complex states with the same speed and confidence as hiring in the simplest ones.

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The compliance burden is real. The employment impact is real. But it does not have to stop you from hiring where the talent is.

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Data source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, State and Metro Area Employment, Hours, and Earnings (SAE), Annual Averages 2019 to 2024, FoxHire's own survey.

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