Despite the US making progress against Covid-19 with the administering of millions of vaccines each day, the pandemic still has a firm grip on the country, with many continuing to suffer from the illness as well as the financial, emotional, and spiritual ramifications precipitated by lockdowns.

But in one sign of hope, new unemployment claims have decreased week-over-week, with 10.1 million Americans currently unemployed due to the pandemic in total. Last week, 730,000 Americans filed new unemployment claims, a massive amount but still a sharp 89% reduction from the 6.9 million new claims filed at the height of the pandemic.

States are varying in their recovery from job losses due to the pandemic, and New Jersey is ranked as one of the fastest-recovering states in the US, according to a new ranking by personal finance site WalletHub. To identify which states are recovering fastest, WalletHub compared the 50 states and District of Columbia across three metrics based on changes in unemployment claims.

They found that New Jersey ranks 2nd overall in recovering jobs since last week with a 17.96% reduction in new unemployment claims, a 34.48% reduction in new claims since the start of 2020, and a 427.73% reduction in new claims since the start of Covid-19 versus the previous year. The fastest-recovering state is Arkansas and the worst-recovering state is Ohio. New York came in the middle of the pack, being ranked the 26th-fastest state to experience a jobs rebound.