Top employer in each state, 1990 vs 2024

I bet the majority of that purple is administrative roles. As in, not providing healthcare but deciding who's going to pay for it

no, I'm sure the majority is in poorly paid roles: janitors, food prep, entry level techs
I often wonder exactly how many office towers there are of people trying to deny health claims, and bickering over who pays how much.
- I work right down the street from the office building of the biggest insurer in our state. The building looks like a damn prison.
Might be a lot people in sales too, and people tasked of getting the best offer on drugs and equipment and so on

Top by what metric? Certainly not top by "largest" https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/largest-employer-by-state Unless you count Walmart and universities as "healthcare" for some reason.

I expect total number employed. For example, healthcare would be broken across hundreds of companies, so it's not as simple as saying "Walmart". Likewise there are other retailers than Walmart.
- https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/walmart-nation-biggest-employers-map.html Here's another one with it coded by industry as well, though a little bit older.
And if the point is to show manufacturing in the US has decreased, isn’t that a “duh” statement?
In my state you get into the high teens before you hit any companies that do manufacturing.

Is this a major consequence of 1994's NAFTA and the relative ease of moving manufacturing jobs to Mexico, vice the service/healthcare jobs being tied to populations themselves?

Yes. I'm not sure what else has gone on, but NAFTA and the US China Relations Act sweaping all of the manufacturing out of the country could account for the whole change between the two maps.

It's blowing my mind that Michigan's largest employer is the University of Michigan, and yet they still voted for Trump.

Top how? Highest per capita salary? Most number of employees? Most revenue? Most profit?

This is probably a dumb question but does "Professional Services" mean?

Sounds like you've never had to endure Amateur Services.
- Beginner Services was terrible! It's like they didn't know what they were doing!!!
Usually it means consulting provided by an outside vendor. So in this case I think they are saying the government hires a lot of services from other companies. Probably to augment their own work.
- Examples include consultants, Managed Service Providers, financial services, staffing firms, HVAC companies, and lawyers. So yeah, workforce augmentation and anything you don't want to keep in house for one reason or another.
White collar contractors.