CLARKSBURG, W.Va. – A new study released by Insurify, says that West Virginia has one of the highest percentages of essential workers in the U.S.
The coronavirus pandemic has broken the country’s workforce into three sectors, the study says: people who are working from home, workers who have become unemployed or essential workers who’ve had little choice but to continue to go to work.
The third category of workers are “indispensable to the day-to-day health and functioning of the country. These essential workers perform a myriad of responsibilities including healthcare, imperative construction work, food production and distribution, and many others,” the study said.
The study compared the number of essential workers in each state to the overall number of workers in the state.
West Virginia ranked 5th, with its number of essential workers coming in 30% higher than the national average. Only Wyoming, Rhode Island, Maine and North Dakota had higher percentages.
The most common essential job in the Mountain State are registered nurses and the largest essential industry in the state is healthcare and social assistance, the study found.
Hawaii, South Dakota, Vermont, Connecticut and Oklahoma rounded out the top 10.
Nevada has the lowest percentage in the country.
