Across the AllWork platform in 2025, companies made thousands of day-to-day decisions about where to deploy flexible talent throughout the U.S. and Canada. Looking back from early 2026, we can see some of those decisions revealing clear patterns about focus, scale, and return.
This lookback is based on aggregated, anonymized data from AllWork customers, with the ROI reflecting reported sales attributed to hourly, shift-based talent compared to the cost of deploying that talent.
The goal isn’t to crown winners, of course, but to share what the data shows about where activity clustered and where returns were the strongest.
In 2025, flexible talent activity remained concentrated in a small group of states: California, Texas, Florida, New York, and New Jersey continued to account for the largest share of workforce deployment.
Interestingly, that picture changed very little from 2024. Rather than shifting activity into new locations, teams continued to focus work where infrastructure, oversight, and demand were already established.
And from an operational standpoint, this consistency made sense. It enabled companies to scale what was already working, instead of rebuilding processes elsewhere, particularly during a year of economic noise.
Note: To keep comparisons meaningful, ROI results only include states with at least 18,600 shifts, which is roughly the average number of shifts per state across the platform.
Using that threshold, the states with the highest median ROI in 2025 were:
However, several of these locations were not primary investment markets: Michigan ranked 14th by hours and spend, Virginia ranked 11th, and Massachusetts ranked 10th.
When we’re looking specifically at the states where companies invested the most, median ROI followed a different pattern:
Taken together, the data shows that scale and efficiency didn’t always line up. Large markets supported volume, while other locations delivered strong returns with less overall activity.
Let’s talk about Florida, which stood out because it performed well on both sides of the equation.
In fact, it remained one of the most active states for flexible talent while also delivering one of the highest median ROI figures. And unlike some high-ROI states, Florida’s performance wasn’t driven by limited deployment. It reflected steady activity paired with solid returns.
From a planning perspective, Florida was one of the more balanced markets on the AllWork platform in 2025.
Now let’s get into flexible work deployment by our friends up north: At an aggregate level, Canada’s median ROI in 2025 came in at $5.16, which was slightly higher than that of the U.S.
Location-wise, nearly half of Canadian flexible workforce spend was concentrated in Ontario.
Even with that concentration, when compared with U.S. states, Ontario ranked:
Additionally, Ontario’s median ROI was $5.40, trailing only Michigan, Florida, and Virginia.
That gap between deployment rank and ROI reflects how efficiently work was executed relative to scale, especially compared to larger investment markets.
In 2024, the highest median ROI states/provinces were:
And in 2025, the list shifted:
Michigan moved into the top position, Florida remained consistently strong, and Ontario stayed near the top (despite a modest year-over-year decline).
Across both years, many of the same states continued to appear, reinforcing the value of consistent deployment volume and established operating models.
Looking across the data, performance was shaped less by where work happened and more by how consistently it was deployed and measured. Markets with steady volume produced more reliable results, while several smaller or secondary locations delivered strong efficiency.
For teams planning ahead, the takeaway is practical. Scale still matters, but visibility into performance is what turns workforce data into better decisions over time.
Want to learn more? See how companies are tracking and attributing sales across flexible teams.
Methodology:This report is based on aggregated, anonymized AllWork customer data from 2025 across all U.S. states and Canadian provinces. ROI reflects reported sales attributed to hourly, shift-based flexible talent compared to deployment cost. State-level analysis includes only locations with a minimum of 18,600 shifts.
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