Virginia Ranked America’s Top State for Business in 2019

Published July 10, 2019

CNBC’s 2019 America’s Top States for Business rankings has put Virginia as #1, with the following four being Texas, North Carolina, Utah and Washington, respectively.

CNBC sites Virginia’s “world-class workforce, high-performing education system and business-friendly regulations” as reasons for the top spot. Other factors were “Defense spending, which is rising, [and] accounts for nearly 12% of Virginia’s economy — more than any other state.”

CNBC adds that workforce is the most important factor in the study and noted “Virginia’s biggest economic development win in recent memory: Amazon’s decision to locate a portion of its coveted HQ2 project in Arlington, announced late last year. The retailer promises to ultimately hire 25,000 people for Virginia’s part of the facility and to spend $2.5 billion.”

The study uses 64 measures of competitiveness across 10 categories. Here is how CNBC describes their method:

“The states are graded based on the qualities they deem most important in attracting business. To do that, we assign a weight to each of our 10 categories by analyzing every state’s economic development marketing materials. The more the states cite a particular category as a selling point, the more weight that category carries. For example, if more states are talking about their workforce, the Workforce category carries more possible points.”
CNBC

You can read the methodology and reasons for why Virginia was selected HERE.

The Shooshan Company is proud to operate in Virginia and to help create new jobs and long term benefits across the state.

References:

Amazon had it right: Virginia is America’s Top State for Business in 2019. 2019. CNBC. Source:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/09/virginia-is-americas-top-state-for-business-in-2019.html