WalMart Dominates National Map, But Not in Connecticut

Connecticut’s largest employers – after the state itself – are Yale New Haven Health Systems, Hartford Healthcare, Yale University and United Technologies Corp, General Dynamics Electric Boat, and the University of Connecticut, according to a list published last year by the Hartford Business Journal.  Wal-Mart Stores ranks eighth in the state, followed by Sikorsky (Lockheed Martin) and Travelers and The Hartford Financial Services Group. Connecticut is one of a dozen states where the dominant employer is the healthcare.  The others include Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, Alaska, Delaware, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oregon, Idaho, and Utah, according to data published by Visual Capitalist.

In nearly as many – 11 states – higher education institutions are the largest employer, including New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, New Mexico, California, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.

Maine’s largest employer is Hannaford Supermarkets.  In New Jersey it is Wakefern Food Corporation, the largest supermarket cooperative in the United States, including ShopRite and PriceRite stores in Connecticut.

In an era where Amazon steals most of the headlines, it’s easy to forget about brick-and-mortar retailers - especially Walmart, which remains dominant across much of the nation's retail landscape.  The company is the biggest private employer in America in a whopping 22 states -  and employs 1.5 million people nationwide.

In New England, Wal-Mart is the largest employer in New Hampshire, with more than 8,000 employees.

In Walmart’s home state of Arkansas, the company employees 53,310 people, or about 4% of the non-farm work force. That includes about 18,600 jobs at the HQ in Bentonville, AR.

Despite the company’s obvious influence in the state where it was founded, Walmart is also the largest employer across the South in general. Whether it is Texas (171,531 employees) or Virginia (44,621), there are Walmarts aplenty in the states surrounding Arkansas.