These States Lost the Most Workers During the Pandemic, Led by California

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Mar 26, 7:15AM EDT

These States Lost the Most Workers During the Pandemic, Led by California — © Mario Tama / Getty Images News via Getty Images

According to a new analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, which covered job losses and gains by state since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, California lost 410,408 workers during the period. That was down to a statewide total of 18,321,857, and it puts it first in losses among all states. (See why for almost 50 years California’s unemployment rate has been worse than the U.S. average.)

In a Bloomberg study of the number of jobs by state in February 2020 and February 2024, New York was second in jobs lost, down 159,301 to 9,318,135. Maryland was the only other state to lose over 100,000 workers during the period, down 137,797 to 3,114,936.

Much of the losses for New York and California came in just two cities. Bloomberg reports, “In Los Angeles County alone, the number of employed has fallen 266,500 over the past four years, and in New York City, it’s down nearly 133,000.”

The early part of the pandemic was a brutal blow to the U.S. workforce. In February 2020, the national unemployment rate was 3.5%, close to the lowest rate in 50 years. In April, it soared to 14.8%. It dropped below 4% again by December 2021. It has been at or below 4% since January 2022.

The following states have lost the most employees since the start of the pandemic (data from BLS and Bloomberg):

California (18,321,857)
New York (9,318,135)
Maryland (3,114,936)
Illinois (6,168,473)
Ohio (5,582,431)
Massachusetts (3,638,482)
Kentucky (1,936,064)
Connecticut (1,820,301)
Iowa (1,650,719)
Hawaii (653,503)

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.