Ohio’s unemployment rate fell for the 11th consecutive month in June, dropping to it’s lowest level in more than four years as job gains in the Buckeye State continued to outpace national job growth, which has slowed to a crawl.

At 7.2 percent, the jobless rate in Ohio last month was a full percentage point lower than the national rate and down from a statewide rate of 7.3 percent in May and 8.9 percent in the same month a year ago, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services reported Friday.

And for the second month in a row, Ohio added more jobs last month than any other state except California, boosting the number of non farm payroll jobs in the state by 18,400, according to the jobs report.

“In June, we saw job growth in a variety of industries, including leisure and hospitality, retail, manufacturing and construction,” said Ben Johnson, a spokesman for the state jobs department. “However, it is important to keep in mind that there are still 419,000 unemployed Ohioans.”

That number, however, was down 7,000 from May, and the number of unemployed workers in Ohio has declined by 96,000 over the past 12 months. Meanwhile, Ohio has added 81,600 jobs so far this year and is on pace to surpass last year’s total when Ohio created the fifth-most jobs in the country, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

With job growth picking up and unemployment in Ohio at its lowest level since September 2008, the political implications could undermine the central point in the Republican case against President Obama that he’s not doing enough on the jobs front, some experts say.

Others disagree.