MARYLAND — WalletHub, a personal finance website, recently published a report that ranked the hardest working states in America, and they ranked Maryland as the 11th hardest-working state in 2021.

To create this list, WalletHub used government, nonprofit, and survey data in which they separated into two categories: direct and indirect factors.

Direct factors include average workweek hours, employment rate, the share of households where no adults work, the share of workers leaving vacation time unused, the share of engaged workers and youth between the ages of 18-24 not working or in school.

Indirect factors include average commute time, the share of workers with multiple jobs, annual volunteer hours, and average leisure time spent per day.

WalletHub graded these factors on a 100-point scale with a score of 100 representing the “hardest working.” After scoring these factors, they had to determine the state’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate the overall score. This overall score is what was used to rank states.

Maryland ranked at 15 for direct factors and ranked at 3 for indirect factors with an overall score of 51.12, according to the report. Also, it should be noted that Maryland has the fourth highest annual volunteer hours per resident.

Additionally, the report had experts answer questions on the future of America’s work environment and all the factors that contribute to major changes. One answer mentioned how the workplace is evolving due to COVID-19 and even more drastically because of the delta variant. This change will lead to companies becoming more labor efficient and open to employees working from home.

“Some workers will be reluctant to work given the current spread of the Delta Variant, which will encourage more businesses to automate or otherwise become more labor-efficient. The variant also will mean continued efforts to accommodate workers who prefer to work from home,” Eric C. Thompson, the director of the Bureau of Business Research for the University of Nebraska Lincoln, said. “The more time businesses must experiment with working from home, the more likely that working from home will become a more common arrangement over the long run.”

Although Maryland ranked as one of the hardest-working states, things are subject to change for the better or worse as work-from-home environments could become long-term.

To read the full report, CLICK HERE

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