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By Jeffry Bartash, Market Watch–

The slowdown in hiring that took place in April and May might persist, if another sharp decline in online help-wanted ads is any indication.

The Conference Board’s help-wanted online report for June showed a 226,700 drop in job advertisements. Forty-eight states and all four major regions of the country reported declines.

The pullback in June follows a 285,000 decline in job advertisements in May.

Online job openings peaked in late 2005 at more than 5.5 million, but they’ve declined sharply to a current level of 4.66 million.

“The losses in the first quarter of 2016 have been followed with even larger losses in the second quarter,” said Gad Levanon, the Conference Board’s chief economist for North America. “The 2016 slowdown in demand has been widespread.”

Listings for professional jobs fell the sharpest. Sales-job openings also posted a steep decline.

The lower rate of online job openings has coincided with slower job creation. The U.S. added just 38,000 jobs in May, preliminary government figures show, and only 123,000 in April. By contrast, the economy added an average of 282,000 jobs a month in the 2015 fourth quarter.

Economists polled by MarketWatch predict the U.S. created 170,000 new jobs in June, a number that will reflect more than 30,000 Verizon employees going back to work after a strike in May. Don’t be surprised if that estimate also falls short.

The Labor Department will report June nonfarm payrolls on Friday.