Online want-ads risen more than 16,000 since year began

The number of online want-ads in Ohio has risen by 16,300 since the beginning of the year, despite a decline of 6,400 job listings from June to July, The Conference Board reported Monday.

That beat the national trend in which the number of jobs advertised online fell by 217,000 in July, dropping the number of online job listings below January’s level by 54,000, according to government data.

Ohio is one of a handful of states - including North Carolina, Minnesota, and Washington - to show an overall increase in online listings this year, while most other states saw the number of online help-wanted ads decline or stay flat.

“The national trend in labor demand, while positive in the first quarter of 2011, turned negative in the second quarter,’’ said June Shelp, vice president at The Conference Board, an independent business membership and research association.

The government’s figures are based on a monthly survey of first-time job listings and jobs re-posted from the previous month on more than 1,200 Internet job sites.

The Conference Board also calculates the ratio of unemployed workers to online job listings, and Ohio fared better than many other states and the nation as a whole in that category as well.

In Ohio, there were 3.05 unemployed workers for every vacancy advertised online. That compares to a U.S. supply-demand ratio of 3.22.

Only one state had more online job listings than unemployed workers: North Dakota, with a supply-demand ratio 0.89.

The state with the highest supply-demand ratio was Mississippi, where there are nearly eight unemployed workers for every online advertised vacancy.

Nationally, there are 9.7 million more unemployed workers than advertised vacancies.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2437 or rtucker@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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