Job Search Pressure Atlas
Where Is It Hardest to Find a Job?
How many unemployed people there are for each advertised job opening, in every state. One division, two official series, no composite.
December 2025 · 51 states and DC · data retrieved 2026-08-22
Where is it hardest to find a job?
In December 2025, Washington had the most competition for each job opening of any state: 1.8 unemployed people for every advertised vacancy. South Dakota had the least, at 0.54 — 3.33 times fewer. The national figure for the same month was 1.15. In 27 of 51 states there were more unemployed people than openings; in the remaining 24 there were more openings than unemployed people.
This is a measure of competition, not of whether a particular search will succeed. A state with few unemployed people per opening is one where vacancies outnumber job seekers; it says nothing about pay, about whether the openings match the people, or about how quickly anyone gets hired.
Most competition
Washington
Least competition
South Dakota
- National
- 1.15
- Median state
- 1.04
- Spread
- 3.33× between highest and lowest
The map
Unemployed people per job opening.
Shaded in fifths of the distribution for December 2025. Darker means more competition for each opening.
The map scrolls sideways on a narrow screen. The full ranking is in the table below.
Squares are placed approximately geographically, not to scale: every state gets the same area because the comparison is between states, not between land masses. Each tile prints its own figure, so the shading is a summary rather than the only way to read the value.
The ranking
All 51, ranked.
Every state links to its own page, with a ten-year history and a comparison against its neighbours.
| Rank | State | Per opening | Openings rate | Hires rate | Unemp. rate | Year change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Washington | 1.80 | 2.9% | 3.1% | 4.9% | +0.76 |
| 2 | Nevada | 1.70 | 3.1% | 4% | 5.2% | +0.49 |
| 3 | Oregon | 1.62 | 3.5% | 3.5% | 5.3% | +0.65 |
| 4 | California | 1.62 | 3.6% | 3.2% | 5.5% | -0.01 |
| 5 | New Jersey | 1.53 | 3.8% | 3.4% | 5.4% | +0.34 |
| 6 | Illinois | 1.46 | 3.3% | 3.7% | 4.7% | +0.28 |
| 7 | Massachusetts | 1.43 | 3.4% | 2.7% | 4.7% | +0.57 |
| 8 | Arizona | 1.38 | 3.6% | 3.9% | 4.4% | +0.51 |
| 9 | New Mexico | 1.33 | 3.5% | 3.3% | 4.3% | +0.54 |
| 10 | Colorado | 1.25 | 3.3% | 2.9% | 3.8% | +0.01 |
| 11 | Connecticut | 1.24 | 3.8% | 3.6% | 4.3% | +0.29 |
| 12 | South Carolina | 1.22 | 4.1% | 4.4% | 4.8% | +0.42 |
| 13 | Pennsylvania | 1.22 | 3.7% | 3% | 4.4% | +0.16 |
| 14 | Delaware | 1.20 | 4.4% | 3.6% | 5.3% | +0.37 |
| 15 | Rhode Island | 1.19 | 4.1% | 3.9% | 4.4% | +0.21 |
| 16 | Florida | 1.19 | 3.9% | 3.1% | 4.3% | +0.31 |
| 17 | New Hampshire | 1.13 | 3.1% | 2.4% | 3.2% | +0.39 |
| 18 | Michigan | 1.13 | 4.7% | 3.8% | 5% | -0.26 |
| 19 | Texas | 1.13 | 4.1% | 3.5% | 4.3% | -0.02 |
| 20 | Alaska | 1.10 | 4.5% | 4.2% | 4.8% | +0.31 |
| 21 | Idaho | 1.08 | 3.7% | 3.9% | 3.6% | +0.23 |
| 22 | New York | 1.08 | 4.1% | 3.3% | 4.6% | +0.26 |
| 23 | Maryland | 1.07 | 4.4% | 3.2% | 4.2% | +0.22 |
| 24 | Utah | 1.06 | 3.5% | 3.5% | 3.7% | +0.31 |
| 25 | Iowa | 1.05 | 3.5% | 3.2% | 3.4% | +0.16 |
| 26 | Arkansas | 1.04 | 4.3% | 3.4% | 4.3% | +0.24 |
| 27 | Kentucky | 1.01 | 4.3% | 3.4% | 4.4% | +0.18 |
| 28 | Indiana | 1.00 | 3.7% | 3.5% | 3.5% | +0.08 |
| 29 | Minnesota | 0.99 | 4.3% | 2.9% | 4.2% | +0.28 |
| 30 | Kansas | 0.98 | 4% | 3.3% | 3.8% | +0.14 |
| 31 | Missouri | 0.96 | 4.1% | 3.2% | 3.9% | +0.23 |
| 32 | North Carolina | 0.96 | 4% | 3.2% | 3.8% | +0.24 |
| 33 | Montana | 0.94 | 4% | 4% | 3.6% | +0.34 |
| 34 | Wyoming | 0.91 | 3.6% | 3.7% | 3.5% | +0.23 |
| 35 | Ohio | 0.90 | 4.8% | 3.2% | 4.4% | -0.12 |
| 36 | Louisiana | 0.89 | 4.8% | 3.9% | 4.2% | -0.05 |
| 37 | Tennessee | 0.88 | 4.1% | 3.6% | 3.6% | +0.08 |
| 38 | Nebraska | 0.87 | 3.5% | 3% | 3% | +0.20 |
| 39 | Wisconsin | 0.87 | 3.7% | 3.4% | 3.2% | +0.12 |
| 40 | West Virginia | 0.86 | 5.5% | 4% | 4.6% | +0.16 |
| 41 | Maine | 0.84 | 4.1% | 3% | 3.3% | -0.02 |
| 42 | Vermont | 0.84 | 3.4% | 2.9% | 2.7% | +0.10 |
| 43 | District of Columbia | 0.81 | 4.5% | 2.6% | 6.7% | +0.25 |
| 44 | Mississippi | 0.80 | 4.7% | 3.9% | 3.7% | 0.00 |
| 45 | Hawaii | 0.80 | 2.9% | 2.8% | 2.2% | +0.11 |
| 46 | Virginia | 0.76 | 4.8% | 3.1% | 3.6% | +0.13 |
| 47 | Oklahoma | 0.75 | 5.3% | 3.9% | 3.7% | +0.10 |
| 48 | Alabama | 0.71 | 4% | 3.3% | 2.7% | +0.03 |
| 49 | Georgia | 0.68 | 5.3% | 2.8% | 3.5% | +0.01 |
| 50 | North Dakota | 0.62 | 3.9% | 4% | 2.6% | +0.17 |
| 51 | South Dakota | 0.54 | 4.1% | 3.6% | 2.2% | +0.09 |
| United States | 1.15 | national series, same month | ||||
The national row is computed from the national JOLTS and household survey series, not by summing the states: BLS models the state and national estimates separately, so the two do not add up exactly.
Movement
What changed in a year.
Change in unemployed people per opening between December 2024 and December 2025.
More competition than a year ago
- Washington
- 1.04 → 1.8 (+0.76)
- Oregon
- 0.97 → 1.62 (+0.65)
- Massachusetts
- 0.86 → 1.43 (+0.57)
- New Mexico
- 0.79 → 1.33 (+0.54)
- Arizona
- 0.87 → 1.38 (+0.51)
Method
How this is built, and what it is not.
State unemployment level divided by state job openings, both seasonally adjusted, both for December 2025. Openings are published in thousands and unemployment in whole people, so the openings figure is multiplied by a thousand before dividing. That is the entire calculation.
This is not a state Job Search Friction Index. The national index depends on how long people stay unemployed, and no comparable monthly state series exists. Building a state “Friction Index” would mean substituting different inputs and keeping the name. A simpler measure that means exactly what it says is worth more than a familiar one that does not.
The period is December 2025, not this month. State JOLTS runs several months behind the national series, and this atlas uses the latest month both sources cover. Pairing a state’s openings with a later month’s unemployment would produce a more current-looking number that measured nothing. The national Job Search Friction Index runs to June 2026 and has moved since.
Does this just restate the unemployment rate?
No. The two rankings correlate at 0.679 — related, as you would expect, but far from identical: a state can have few unemployed people and even fewer vacancies. The ranking is close to unrelated to the state hires rate (0.006), which is the same pattern the national Job Market Disconnect describes, visible across states.
BLS publishes this ratio too
The underlying measure is not ours. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes unemployed persons per job opening by state itself, and anyone who wants the current figure should be able to get it from the source. What is added here is the surrounding context: a full ranking in one table, ten years of history for every state, each state’s position against its own past rather than only against other states, the year-on-year move, a comparison with bordering states, and both series in one downloadable file. If all you need is this month’s number, use BLS.
What this does not tell you
- Whether the openings in a state match the people looking for work there, by skill, seniority, industry or pay.
- Anything about a particular city or metropolitan area. State averages hide large internal differences.
- How quickly anyone actually gets hired. That needs the hires rate, which is shown alongside and which ranks differently.
- Anything about people who are not counted as unemployed — including those who have stopped looking, and those searching while employed.
Source series
- JTS0000000<ST>0000JOL — Job openings level by state, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey
- JTS0000000<ST>0000JOR — Job openings rate by state, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey
- JTS0000000<ST>0000HIR — Hires rate by state, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey
- LASST<ST>0000000000004 — Unemployment level by state, Local Area Unemployment Statistics
- LASST<ST>0000000000003 — Unemployment rate by state, Local Area Unemployment Statistics
All series seasonally adjusted, retrieved from the BLS public API on 2026-08-22. History covers 119 months from January 2016; state percentiles use 107 months, excluding March 2020 to February 2021. Methodology version 1.0.0.