Arizona held the No. 2 spot for job growth among states in July behind Nevada, according to the Blue Chip Job Growth Update released Tuesday.
The number of jobs increased to 2.58 million in July compared with 2.47 million in July 2005, when Arizona also ranked second. That's a 4.75 percent increase, significantly higher than the national rise of 1.3 percent.
Louisiana ranked at the bottom of the list losing 9 percent of its nonagricultural job base from July 2005 to July 2006.
Arizona ranked No. 1 in two categories of job growth: trade with a 5.37 percent gain and leisure and hospitality with a 5.82 increase.
Other Arizona rankings by sector and percent change were as follows: goods producing, No. 6, 6.54 percent; services, No. 2, 4.4 percent; mining and construction, No. 3, 11.05 percent; manufacturing, No. 18, 0.82 percent; transportation, warehousing, utilities, No. 31, 0.37 percent; information, No. 41, -2.2 percent; finance, No. 7, 4.07 percent; professional and business services, No. 3, 7.19 percent; education and health services, No. 4, 4.01 percent; government, No. 9, 1.69 percent.