With U.S. payroll job growth averaging nearly a quarter of a million a month over the last three months, general optimism about the sustainability of the U.S. economic recovery has improved considerably.  However, coming out of the Great Recession, shell-shocked employers continued to slash jobs for many more months than usual. Thus, part of the current growth in jobs can be attributed to employers playing “catch-up” after this cyclically anomalous lag.

In this context, ECRI has completed an in-depth analysis revealing which states and sectors are driving the ongoing jobs recovery. Moreover, using newly-created regional leading employment indexes, we determine whether growth in the groups of states spearheading this jobs revival can hold up much longer.