A MediaPost report entitled Online Job Ad Revenues Surpass Print brings another rainy day to the nation’s newspapers. Why? Advertising online outpaced print by the tune of $5.9 billion to $5.4 billion in 2006.
Much of the online growth is expected to come from small and medium-sized businesses posting local ads for hourly and part-time workers. Already, two-thirds of online job revenues are generated by niche boards or regional Web sites focusing on specific categories such as nursing, technology or food services. Rivals Monster and CareerBuilder, respectively, control 14% and 12% of the online job market, while newspapers not affiliated with either job site claim 8%.
With such bleakness, it’s no surprise the newspapers have jumped into bed with the very entities that have been a major source of their hemorrhaging, creating alliances with Yahoo! HotJobs and Monster in recent months, complementing their long term relationship with CareerBuilder. But will it work?
[The report] questions whether these alliances will benefit newspapers in the long-term. “In the end, the newspapers that fled to Monster or HotJobs wound up doing exactly what they shouldn’t: Abandoning a billion-dollar investment in their own product and building up brands they have spent years trying unsuccessfully to degrade,” the report stated.
There’s also a nice nod to the niche market.
While the moves made by Monster and HotJobs grabbed headlines this year, the spread of specialized job sites generated much of the online ad growth. The report cites SnagAJob, which focuses on hourly jobs, as an example of a fast-growing targeted site used by employers including Home Depot, 7-Eleven and Target. These sites are also creating features such as blogs, podcasting and videocasting to help create a sense of community around careers.
It’s all creating two very distinct options for Internet recruiting. On one hand, you have the large partnerships, hoping to deliver the masses – all for a pretty penny. Word on the street is Monster will be significantly increasing prices for next year. Many of the niche sites out there continually increase rates as well.
On the other hand, you have the free and the cheap: Craigslist, Google Base, JobCentral. No surprise, this is where much of the growth resides.
Are the price increases a sign of milking employers for all they can for as long as possible, knowing that the shift to the opposite end of the spectrum is just a matter of time? Will free continue to grow while maintaining a strong level of quality, or will success breed a decrease in value; getting what you pay for?
It should be an interesting 2007.
Popularity: 3% [?]
December 21st, 2006 at 12:06 pm
About a year ago, the careerbuilder section of the Sunday paper used to be very “thick.” It was filled with lots of classified job ads. Nowadays, that very same section every Sunday is about only 2 pages (at least in the Sunday edition of the Sun-Sentinel).
More and more people are realizing that there are other sources for news, as the print newspapers go farther to the left. The loony left can’t stand losing, but they don’t have solution. All they do is bash, bash, bash.