Where the LPN Jobs Are: States, Metros and Settings (BLS May 2025)

Six states hold almost half of the country's licensed practical nurse jobs, and one kind of employer, the skilled nursing facility, holds more than a quarter of them. This guide answers "where are the most LPN jobs" with the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for May 2025, the newest state and metro employment data the government publishes for licensed practical and licensed vocational nurses (LVN is the title California and Texas use for the same license). Every count, concentration and wage below is a BLS estimate; nothing is taken from job postings or salary sites.

The short answer

• By headcount, the most LPN jobs are in California (82,850), Texas (57,560), Ohio (39,900), New York (39,400), Florida (38,620) and Pennsylvania (38,260). Together those six states employ 296,590 of the nation's 648,410 LPNs and LVNs, 45.7% of the total.
• By concentration, meaning LPN jobs per 1,000 jobs of every kind, the leaders are Louisiana (9.10 per 1,000), West Virginia (8.62), Mississippi (8.47), Arkansas (7.68) and Ohio (7.19). In those states an LPN license is in heavier demand relative to the size of the economy than anywhere else.
• By metro, Los Angeles (33,590) and New York (32,410) are far ahead of the rest; Philadelphia (15,920), Dallas-Fort Worth (12,590) and Chicago (11,420) complete the top five.
• By setting, skilled nursing facilities employ 188,210 LPNs, 29.0% of all of them, followed by general hospitals (89,620), home health care (80,990) and physicians' offices (69,250).

Open LPN postings on hospital and health-system career sites are listed on the LPN jobs hub, and every state and metro in the tables below links to its own page there.

Which states have the most LPN jobs?

The ten states with the largest LPN and LVN workforces account for 57.7% of the national total. "Per 1,000 jobs" is the number of LPN jobs for every thousand jobs in the state; the location quotient compares that density with the national average (1.00), so a state at 1.72 has 72% more LPN jobs, relative to its size, than the country as a whole.

Two things stand out. California's lead is partly a matter of size: with 4.55 LPN jobs per 1,000, its density is only a little above the national average, and its LVNs are spread across the largest health economy in the country. Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Louisiana are different: they are big employers and dense ones, with location quotients of 1.5 or more, which is where a licensed practical nurse has the most employers competing for the same license. Texas, New York and Florida sit right at the national average for density, so the sheer number of jobs there comes with a proportionate number of other LPNs looking for them.

Where LPN jobs are most concentrated

If the question is not "where are the most jobs" but "where is my license most in demand", concentration is the better measure. The South and the Ohio Valley dominate it: every state in the top ten has at least 26% more LPN jobs per 1,000 than the national average, and Louisiana has more than twice the average. These are also, for the most part, lower-wage states, which is the trade-off: high demand, a lower mean wage, and a lower cost of living (our LPN salary by state guide ranks every state by pay).

At the other end, Alaska (0.88 per 1,000), Utah (0.97), Maine (1.18), Hawaii (1.33) and the District of Columbia (1.48) have the fewest LPN jobs relative to their size. Several of them pay well (Alaska's mean is $80,000, Hawaii's $71,560), but there are few positions to apply for.

LPN jobs in every state

All 50 states and the District of Columbia, ranked by the number of licensed practical and licensed vocational nurses employed in May 2025. Each state name links to its LPN jobs page on the job board. BLS also counts 2,990 LPNs in Puerto Rico, 90 in Guam and 50 in the U.S. Virgin Islands, which are left out of the ranking.

Which metros have the most LPN jobs?

Metropolitan areas are where most of the jobs are, but LPN employment is less concentrated in the biggest cities than registered nurse employment is, because so much of it sits in nursing homes and home health agencies spread across smaller towns. The 25 metros below hold 244,070 LPN jobs, about 38% of the national total; the two largest, Los Angeles and New York, hold 66,000 between them. California has five metros on the list and Ohio three (Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati), which is the city-level view of Ohio's high concentration.

Density tells a different story again. The metro areas and rural regions with the most LPN jobs per 1,000 are almost all in Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Arkansas: central Louisiana's rural counties have 15.43 LPN jobs per 1,000 (3.7 times the national average), Monroe, Louisiana has 12.95, Springfield, Ohio 12.02, Lafayette, Louisiana 11.70 and Shreveport 11.30. Among larger metros, Scranton-Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania stands out at 8.90 per 1,000. A licensed practical nurse willing to work outside a major city will find the thickest market in those regions.

Which settings employ the most LPNs?

Where LPN jobs are is as much a question of setting as of geography. Five industries employ 472,170 LPNs and LVNs, 72.8% of the total, and the largest by a wide margin is the skilled nursing facility. General hospitals, which employ the majority of registered nurses, employ fewer than one LPN in seven. The wage column is a reminder that the biggest employers are not the lowest payers: skilled nursing facilities, staffing agencies and outpatient centers all pay above the $67,050 national mean, and general hospitals and physicians' offices below it.

The practical reading: in most states, the fastest route to an LPN job is a skilled nursing facility or a home health agency, and the hospital jobs that many new graduates picture are a minority of the market and tend to cluster in the states, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Texas among them, where hospitals still staff medical-surgical and long-term acute care units with LPNs.

Will there be more LPN jobs?

The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook counted 666,900 LPN and LVN jobs in 2025 and projects employment to grow 3% from 2025 to 2035, about as fast as the average for all occupations, adding 19,700 jobs. The larger number is turnover: about 51,800 openings a year are projected over the decade, most of them to replace nurses who move to other occupations or retire. The Handbook attributes the demand to an aging population, which needs more care in residential facilities and at home, and to the growing prevalence of chronic conditions such as diabetes and obesity. Its employer breakdown matches the OEWS picture: nursing and residential care facilities employ 37% of LPNs, hospitals 16%, home health care 12%, physicians' offices 11% and government 6%. The median pay in 2025 was $64,400 a year, or $30.96 an hour.

How to use this if you are job hunting

1. Decide which number matters to you. Headcount favors California, Texas, Ohio, New York, Florida and Pennsylvania; density favors Louisiana, West Virginia, Mississippi, Arkansas and Ohio. Ohio and Pennsylvania are the two states that score on both.
2. Check pay next to volume. The states with the most LPN jobs are not the best-paying ones; Washington, California, Oregon and Rhode Island lead on wages. The LPN salary by state guide has every state's mean, median and hourly figures from the same release.
3. Look at the settings, not just the map. Nursing facilities and home health hire the most LPNs everywhere, and they pay above the national mean; a search limited to hospitals leaves out most of the market.
4. Mind the license. Forty states are in the Nurse Licensure Compact, so a multistate LPN license from a compact state covers Texas, Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Louisiana; California and New York, the first and fourth largest markets, are not members and need their own license (our compact states list has the full map, and how to become an LPN in Florida walks through a state board's process).
5. Search where the postings are. The LPN jobs hub lists open positions from hospital and health-system career sites by state and city, with links from every row of the tables above.

Sources

• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, occupation profile for Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses (29-2061), May 2025, read 21 October 2026.
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses, 2025 employment and pay, 2025-35 projections, read 21 October 2026.