Report: R.I., Conn., Mass. good places to find jobs

Last month saw 3.142 million U.S. job vacancies advertised online, representing 2.1 vacancies per every 100 persons in the labor force, The Conference Board said in a Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series report released last Wednesday.
Those 3.142 million unduplicated online ads include 1.988 million new ads that did not appear in December, the report said. Total ads were down 6 percent and new ads 5 percent from the previous month, in what The Conference Board called “a largely seasonal decline.” Compared with January 2006, total ads were up 12 percent and new ads 15 percent.
“January’s job vacancy data points to a labor market that is definitely holding its own,” said Gad Levanon, an economist at The Conference Board. “The number of online advertised vacancies grew significantly during the last 12 months and do not signal any weakness in the labor market.”
Massachusetts, with 133,000 advertised vacancies in January, posted
3.93 vacancies for every 100 persons in its labor force – the highest ratio of any state in the nation.
Nevada was close behind, at 3.72 ads per 100 workers, followed by Alaska at 3.30. Fourth place was shared by Connecticut, Rhode Island and Virginia, at 3.21 online ads per 100 workers. Filling out the Top 10 were Oregon at 3.16; Delaware at 3.15; Maryland at 3.12; and Arizona at 3.05.
But Levanson noted that looking at the number of unemployed in relation to the number of advertised vacancies provides a better indication of available opportunities for job-seekers.
Using the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the report calculated supply/demand ratios for the nation – 1.94 job-seekers per ad in December, the latest period for which unemployment figures were available – and for each state.
The top states for those looking for work in December were those with less than one unemployed job-seeker to every ad: Hawaii (0.77), Virginia (0.80), Delaware (0.86) and Utah (0.88).
Filling out the Top 10 were Nevada and Connecticut, at 1.09 job-seekers per ad; Maryland, at 1.15; Arizona at 1.16; and Rhode Island, at 1.18 job-seekers per ad. Massachusetts, though it didn’t make that list, also ranked well nationwide last month, with 1.21 job-seekers per ad.
The occupations with the most jobs posted this month nationwide were:
management, with 354,800 postings, or 11 percent of the total; business and financial operations, with 277,900, and office and administrative support, with 257,200.
“Not only are these jobs in demand, but many of them are high-paying jobs,” Levanon said.