• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, June 21, 2006

Employers placed 2.35 million job ads online last month, marking a 4 percent increase over April, and a 17 percent increase year-over-year, according to data released Tuesday by The Conference Board.

Despite the uptick, the number of online job ads remained lower than the yearly high of 2.4 million in March, according to The Conference Board.

That group's findings are partially consistent with a recent report by Monster Worldwide, which runs online job site Monster.com. Monster stated that its employment index grew by 4 points last month, following a slight decline in April. But, unlike The Conference Board, Monster.com reported that May's index--167--was the highest this year to date. Year-over-year, Monster.com's index grew by 25 percent.

When The Conference Board looked at job ads by region, it found the largest year-over-year increases in West South Central (39.6 percent), the Pacific (25.9 percent) and Mountain (23.7 percent). The Conference Board reported a dip of 5.2 percent in East South Central. Monster.com's regional report, by contrast, shows growth in all areas of the country.

To produce the reports, The Conference Board measures first-time online jobs on more than 1,200 Internet job boards and smaller niche job boards, while Monster culls data from more than 1,500 online sites.