The Maine Jobs Council issued the following statement regarding CNBC’s recent publication of this year’s “America’s Top States for Business,” in which Maine’s ranking dropped from #39 to #42.

“Maine’s drop to the ninth worst state for business is disappointing, but not surprising. For years, Maine has ranked in the bottom ten in a variety of state rankings including workforce, productivity, business environment, and more. We only seem to make the ‘top ten’ in areas like high cost of living, high tax burden, federal dependency, and cost to do business.

“Some of the reasons Maine’s ranking dropped this year are that CNBC put more emphasis on infrastructure, access to investment, and business friendliness—categories where Maine has consistently ranked low. Workforce also remained an important category, and our ranking plunged from 22 to 46!  Workforce, productivity, investment, taxes, and infrastructure are all categories that impact prosperity, growth, employment, and quality of life.  Maine is in a very select group of states that score poorly in all of these categories.

“The bottom-line is that Maine is not competitive to keep or create jobs, which are the fundamental driver of our economy. The state very much needs a comprehensive analysis to determine why we’re not competitive followed by a strategic plan to remedy our shortcomings so we can win the competition for talent, investment, and jobs.”

For more information about Maine’s competitiveness rankings, please visit: https://mainejobscouncil.com/rankings/