First it was retirees. Then families. Then small businesses. Now major employers — including vegan veggie-burger maker Dr. Praeger’s — are moving jobs and operations out of New Jersey, creating an increasingly uncomfortable economic problem for Gov. Mikie Sherrill.

TRENTON, NJ — First it was the retirees.

For years, New Jerseyans reaching retirement age packed up the house, handed over the Parkway E-ZPass and headed for Florida, South Carolina, Delaware, Pennsylvania and other places where a pension could stretch farther and winter did not require a snowblower.

Then came the families.

Then the businesses.

And now, apparently, even the vegans have had enough.

Dr. Praeger’s Sensible Foods, the Elmwood Park company known for veggie burgers, spinach littles and other plant-forward frozen foods, is moving its New Jersey manufacturing operation to Kentucky.

The company isn’t going out of business. It is simply making the food somewhere else. It’s literally taking its vegan burger production out of blue New Jersey and moving to red state Kentucky.

That move wasn’t on anyone’s bingo cards for 2026, but perhaps we should have seen it coming.

New Jersey Has Been Watching Residents Leave for Years

The corporate departures did not begin in a vacuum.

New Jersey has spent years near the top of national outbound-migration rankings. United Van Lines reported that New Jersey had the highest outbound percentage in its moving network for the eighth consecutive year in 2025. Retirement, family considerations and employment have consistently been among the reasons people leave.

In 2024, 67% of the New Jersey moves handled by United Van Lines were outbound, and more than 40% of departing customers were 65 or older. Florida alone accounted for one-fifth of those departures.

For decades the joke was familiar: work in Jersey, pay off the house, retire somewhere warmer.

The joke has become less funny as the moving trucks keep showing up.

Then COVID Crushed Small Businesses

Then came COVID-19.

New Jersey’s shutdowns in 2020 hit restaurants, gyms, salons, retailers, entertainment venues and other small businesses especially hard. Many were forced to close for weeks or months, operate under capacity limits or spend heavily on outdoor setups, protective equipment and new delivery systems just to survive.

Thousands of businesses never fully recovered. Some closed permanently, others took on debt they are still carrying, and many owners emerged from the pandemic facing higher labor costs, insurance premiums, rents and supply expenses than before.

The damage was especially visible in downtown business districts and along the Jersey Shore, where seasonal operators lost crucial months of revenue and hospitality businesses were among the last to return to normal.

For New Jersey, COVID did not create the state’s affordability and business-climate problems, but it accelerated them. Joe Biden, Phil Murphy, and Mikie Sherrill didn’t make that recovery any easier for them.

It wiped out weaker operators, pushed some owners into early retiremen,t and made relocation to lower-cost states more attractive for entrepreneurs already questioning whether staying in New Jersey still made financial sense.

Then the Moving Trucks Started Showing Up at Corporate Headquarters

By 2026, New Jersey was no longer talking only about retirees or mom-and-pop shops.

It was watching major corporate names head for the exits.

A Focus NJ analysis highlighted by Shore News Network examined eight companies that relocated, downsized or chose to expand elsewhere. The report estimated 7,220 jobs, nearly $676 million in annual payroll and tens of millions of dollars in associated state and local tax revenue were tied to those decisions.

Assemblyman Christopher DePhillips had a succinct assessment.

“You know who loves New Jersey’s economic policies?” DePhillips said. “Texas.”

That line has aged rather well.

Samsung Packed for Texas

Samsung announced plans to shift its U.S. headquarters operation from Englewood Cliffs to Plano, Texas, only months after its New Jersey headquarters had been celebrated as an economic-development win.

The move affected roughly 1,000 headquarters employees, with workers offered relocations and some positions subject to elimination through restructuring. A later WARN filing listed 739 Samsung Electronics America positions in Englewood Cliffs, while Samsung SDS America disclosed another 179 affected positions in Ridgefield Park.

Assemblywoman Victoria Flynn said the pattern was becoming difficult to dismiss.

“Whether it’s Samsung, Mercedes-Benz, Hertz, ExxonMobil, or other major employers, the message is becoming impossible to ignore: businesses are voting with their feet,” Flynn said.

Samsung cited consolidation around its expanding Texas operation rather than simply blaming New Jersey taxes.

Still, the destination was Texas.

Again.

Exxon Changed Its Legal Address to Texas

ExxonMobil also moved its legal domicile from New Jersey to Texas this year.

This one requires some context: Exxon’s headquarters and core leadership had already been in Texas since 1989, meaning the 2026 change was primarily a legal redomiciling rather than a newly announced relocation of a New Jersey workforce.

But Exxon Chairman and CEO Darren Woods was hardly coy about why the company preferred Texas.

“Over the past several years, Texas has made a noticeable effort to embrace the business community,” Woods said. He said the state’s policy and regulatory climate could help Exxon “maximize shareholder value.”

For a state trying to sell itself as a corporate home, watching one of America’s biggest companies formally replace “New Jersey” with “Texas” on the paperwork was not exactly brochure material.

Burlington Crosses the Delaware

Then came perhaps the most symbolically painful move of the year.

Burlington Stores — founded in Burlington, headquartered in Burlington County and carrying the state’s name around the country for more than half a century — decided it would rather have its headquarters in Philadelphia.

Burlington is moving its corporate headquarters across the Delaware River in a $370 million project expected to establish a workforce of as many as 2,000 employees in West Philadelphia.

About 1,600 employees at the existing Burlington Township headquarters are expected to transition to Philadelphia.

Pennsylvania is putting $30 million into the deal.

Gov. Josh Shapiro has been advertising Pennsylvania’s business climate with a simple message: “Pennsylvania is open for business.” His administration has specifically touted companies relocating from New Jersey, including Burlington and Eos Energy.

Apparently “open for business” also means accepting deliveries from Exit 5 of the Turnpike.

Mars Wrigley Leaves Newark Headquarters Behind

Mars Wrigley is closing its U.S. headquarters and market hub in Newark and consolidating corporate operations in Chicago.

The move affects 307 Newark employees.

Mars will continue operating its Hackettstown manufacturing facility, meaning the company is not abandoning New Jersey entirely. But Newark loses another corporate headquarters and the professional jobs attached to it.

And Now Dr. Praeger’s Is Making Veggie Burgers in Kentucky

Which brings New Jersey to Dr. Praeger’s.

The company was founded in North Jersey by doctors Peter Praeger and Eric Somberg and grew its name around frozen vegetarian and vegan foods.

Its manufacturing operation is now heading to Kentucky.

Corporate functions are expected to remain in the Elmwood Park area, so this is not a wholesale company departure.

But manufacturing jobs that were once in Bergen County will no longer be manufactured in Bergen County.

At some point, when the veggie burgers are fleeing, even New Jersey’s political class has to acknowledge the optics.

2026 Layoff Notices Are Piling Up

The departures are occurring against a much larger backdrop of layoffs, closures and corporate restructuring.

A Shore News Network review of New Jersey WARN filings found thousands of jobs affected this year at companies including Samsung, Mars Wrigley, Novartis, JPMorgan Chase, Verizon, International Paper and other employers.

New Jersey’s official WARN archive has continued growing. Recent notices include 322 positions at Novartis in East Hanover, 307 at Mars Wrigley in Newark, 179 at Samsung SDS in Ridgefield Park and 126 at International Paper in Barrington. WARN notices can represent layoffs, facility closures, restructuring or relocations and should not all be treated as companies completely leaving New Jersey.

Republicans Have Turned the Departures Into a Running Scoreboard

New Jersey Republicans have been hammering Sherrill over the announcements.

“Businesses are waving red flags and Trenton keeps hitting snooze,” DePhillips said earlier this year. “The headlines are impossible to ignore. Employers are dealing with crushing taxes, skyrocketing energy costs, and regulatory burdens that make it easier to invest somewhere else.”

The Senate Republican caucus has also begun publicly tracking employers that leave, cut jobs or choose to make major investments elsewhere, highlighting Burlington, Samsung, Johnson & Johnson, HelloFresh and ExxonMobil. Shore News Network examined that political fight following the latest jobs report.

Sherrill Has Admitted New Jersey Has a Business Problem

The most difficult quote for Sherrill’s critics did not come from a Republican.

It came from Sherrill.

“Trenton often overlooks how critically important businesses are,” the governor told lawmakers during her March budget address.

Then she went further.

“But I hear again and again how hard it is to do business here,” Sherrill said. “Permitting is too slow. Licensing is a black box. Projects fail because they simply can’t afford the uncertainty or the wait.”

Her administration has responded with a regulatory review, permitting reforms, reduced business registration fees and other measures aimed at making state government easier to navigate.

Sherrill has also blamed federal policies under President Donald Trump for some of New Jersey’s economic pressure, particularly tariffs, federal cuts and the national jobs picture. In February, she said Trump’s tariffs were “crushing small businesses.”

Both things can be true: federal policy can hurt New Jersey businesses, and New Jersey can still have homegrown competitiveness problems. New Jersey is hurting itself and perhaps more than Sherrill would like to admit.

New Jersey Once Put Up Snarky Billboards to Steal New York Businesses

There is an added bit of irony.

A few years ago, New Jersey’s economic-development arm was the one trolling its neighbor.

Choose New Jersey placed billboards around New York declaring, “Paying a Congestion Tax to Sit in NYC Traffic? Get Outta Here,” followed by the invitation: “Move your business to New Jersey.”

So far, no major news came out of those billboards.

New Jersey also ran billboards in Florida, Texas, Georgia and Missouri telling businesses to consider relocating to the Garden State.

Now Pennsylvania is taking Burlington.

Texas got Samsung.

Chicago got Mars.

Kentucky got Dr. Praeger’s manufacturing.

The billboards may need updating.

The Problem Is Bigger Than One Governor, in facf it could be two or three…or four.

It would be easy — and politically convenient — to place every departure on Sherrill’s desk.

You can’t forget about Phil Murphy, Chris Christie and Jon Corzine. Mostly, Phil Murphy.

New Jersey’s high costs, tax structure, permitting complaints and outbound migration predate her administration by years. Some 2026 moves were planned before she took office. Others resulted from national corporate consolidation, incentives offered elsewhere, office-space needs or proximity to existing operations.

New Jersey also continues to attract investment, and some companies shrinking their real estate footprints remain committed to the state. Prudential, for example, is selling two Newark buildings but says its global headquarters will remain in the city. Sherrill called the move part of the company’s “next chapter” in Newark.

But governors inherit problems along with the office.

Sherrill now owns the response.

The Moving Van Has Become New Jersey’s Unofficial State Vehicle

The Garden State still has enormous advantages: New York and Philadelphia at its borders, ports, highways, airports, universities, pharmaceutical infrastructure and one of the country’s most educated workforces.

The question is no longer whether New Jersey has assets.

It is whether companies believe those assets are worth the price of admission.