DALLAS, Apr 18, 2006/ --- The internet has become a big part of the American lifestyle that the Conference Board, is one of the world's leading business membership and research organizations now has ‘Help-Wanted Online Data Series™’ to track the number of new, first-time online jobs posted on more than 1,200 major Internet job boards and smaller job boards that serve niche markets and smaller geographic areas.

Based on the Help-Wanted Online Data Series™ released today, new online job ads rose sharply in March, reaching 2,401,200, which is 21% above the previous month.

The number of new ads for online jobs in March was the largest monthly count since The Conference Board launched the Help-Wanted OnLine series in April 2005 and topped the previous high levels in late summer 2005.

In March, there were 1.60 online job ads per 100 persons in the U.S. labor force, compared with 1.33 in February 2006 and 1.44 in January.

"Since March is not a particularly strong month in terms of labor demand, these latest numbers suggest the rise was not just due to seasonal factors," said Gad Levanon, Economist at The Conference Board in a statement.

"The number of new ads in March was significantly higher than the number posted during the summer months, typically the peak period for hiring. Large numbers of new job ads are consistent with the robust employment numbers published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in recent months, but other labor market indicators are weaker. So the overall job picture is still a bit mixed," he added.

The increase was seen all over the country with Denver topping the nation in new online ads jobs.

The largest increase was in the West North Central (Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas) and the smallest increase was in the Pacific region, up 25 percent and 18 percent, respectively. New England remains the region with the highest number of new online jobs per 100 persons (2.45), and the East South Central with the lowest (1.02).

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