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Massachusetts leads country in jobs for college grads

If you think Boston is overrun with college students, you must not be trying to hire them. Massachusetts has more job openings that require a college degree than most other states, and it leads the nation in terms of high-skill job openings per capita.

According to a new report from the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce that scanned online job listings from thousands of websites, there were 94,600 open jobs in Massachusetts that required a bachelor’s degree or above in 2013, the fourth-highest total nationwide. And accounting for its relatively small college-educated workforce compared to much larger states such as California, New York, and Texas, Massachusetts leads the country in terms of high-skill job openings per worker.

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Part of it has to do with the state’s focus on high-tech industries. Jobs in science, technology, engineering, and math have 3.1 openings for every 100 workers, more than any other sector and six times the ratio for blue-collar jobs like construction, the Georgetown researchers said in their full report. Although workers with those skills are in high demand, the researchers noted that a software developer job is more likely to be advertised online than, say, a job for a coal miner.

At the same time, according to the report, the number of openings for lower-wage workers in Massachusetts has declined since the recession. From 2010 through 2013, food and personal service job listings -- most of which don’t require a college degree -- fell by 34 percent, the second-biggest drop of any state. And the number of blue-collar jobs advertised online dropped 19 percent, the sixth-biggest drop among the 39 states ranked.

Most favorable online college labor markets
Massachusetts leads the nation in online job ads per college education worker. The chart compares a state's performance to the national average; the Massachusetts number means the state has 67 percent more jobs per college-educated worker than the nation as a whole.
Massachusetts
1.67
Delaware
1.51
Washington
1.42
Colorado
1.23
Alaska
1.21
Arizona
1.16
Oregon
1.16
California
1.14
Minnesota
1.10
Texas
1.09
Iowa
1.09
Montana
1.09
South Dakota
1.08
New Jersey
1.07
Georgia
1.05
Connecticut
1.04
North Carolina
1.03
Michigan
1.03
Virginia
1.02
Illinois
0.98
Ohio
0.95
New York
0.93
Maryland
0.92
Idaho
0.92
North Dakota
0.89
Missouri
0.87
Nebraska
0.86
Kansas
0.84
Nevada
0.83
Alabama
0.80
Maine
0.79
Pennsylvania
0.79
Arkansas
0.79
New Mexico
0.78
Oklahoma
0.78
Florida
0.77
Indiana
0.77
Louisiana
0.76
Utah
0.75
Wyoming
0.75
New Hampshire
0.75
Tennessee
0.74
Wisconsin
0.71
Kentucky
0.70
Vermont
0.67
Hawaii
0.58
Mississippi
0.56
South Carolina
0.54
Rhode Island
0.53
West Virginia
0.50
:
Bennie DiNardo/Globe Staff

Jack Newsham can be reached at jack.newsham@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @TheNewsHam.