STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Millions of New Yorkers work day and night just to afford life in one of the states with the highest cost of living in the country. But a new study seems to suggest that residents of the Empire State aren’t working all that hard.

WalletHub, an online financial advice website, released a new study this week titled “States with the Most Work Processes in America,” with first place being the state with the most work process and 50th place being the state with the least work process.

“There’s no denying that America has fostered a culture of hard work, with people working longer hours than in other developed countries and often forgoing vacation time. Hard work is commendable, but people in the states with the highest workloads should consider taking a break every now and then, as a lack of free time can have negative effects on people’s physical and mental health,” said Cassandra Happe, analyst at WalletHub.

New York ranked 49th overall, a surprising result that makes the state the second-fewest worker in the country, behind only West Virginia, which ranked 50th.

The study analyzed ten key metrics across all 50 states to create a comprehensive ranking that shows how hard residents work and how little time they spend on leisure and recreation.

These indicators included direct work factors such as the employment rate, average weekly working hours, the proportion of households in which no adult works, the proportion of workers not using their holidays, the proportion of engaged workers and idle youth, and indirect work factors such as average commuting time, the proportion of workers with multiple jobs, annual volunteer hours per inhabitant and average leisure time per day.

New York ranked dead last in direct labor factors, 50th out of 50, and despite having the longest average commute time in the country, nearly twice that of South Dakota, the state with the shortest average commute time, the Empire State, ranked only 18th in indirect labor factors.

Because indirect labor factors such as average commute time are given less weight than direct labor factors, New York’s 18th place ranking in indirect labor factors was not enough to move it up from the bottom of the list.

North Dakota was ranked as the most labor-intensive state in the country, followed by Alaska, Nebraska, Wyoming and South Dakota. The least labor-intensive states were, in that order, West Virginia, New York, Michigan, New Mexico and Connecticut.

“North Dakota is the state with the highest workload, in part because it has the highest employment rate in the country at over 98%. Additionally, workers ages 16 to 64 in North Dakota work an average of 39.7 hours per week, the third highest work hours in the country. People in the Roughrider State have the second least amount of time off per day, and 33.5% of workers leave some of their vacation time unused, the second highest percentage,” Happe said.