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The study notes that recruitment advertising began its cyclical
recovery with 2004's improved
employment picture. Both newspapers and online media saw gains.
But Internet job boards improved three times faster. Sales positions
-- particularly in retail and healthcare -- are a key battleground
as newspapers attempt to shore up their position against Monster's
initiative to reach smaller local
businesses.
The American economy has begun to turn, and with it comes new sunlight
for recruitment advertising. The unemployment rate in the US has
dropped for the first time in three years, and newspaper help-wanted
advertising showed a corresponding
increase. If history offers any pattern, what will follow are seven
years of increases in recruitment spending. The big question, of
course, is where that
spending will occur.
While all boats are rising once again on the flowing
tide, some boats are indeed rising faster. Online job boards grew
nearly three times as fast as newspaper classifieds in 2004. The
battleground remains with non-managerial positions in the Small
and
Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Two million of the estimated 13 million
SMEs advertise in newspapers, and they have remained loyal to the
helpwanted section. In 18 months, Monster has been able to convert
almost 10 per cent of the SME category to online. The battle wages
on. Pricing has begun to drop, making the job boards more alluring
to price-conscious newspaper advertisers
in smaller markets.
Migration has already occurred in the sales-recruitment category,
where recruiters devoting more dollars to the job boards. Other
non-
managerial categories remain squarely in the newspaper domain. The
road ahead is tough for the job boards and newspapers alike. Recruiters
are spending $1.5 billion on their own sites in 2004, more than
they're spending with the job boards. Corporate sites have become
more sophisticated in the past two years as they add features that
mimic those of the major job boards. Job seekers can now go directly
to an employer's Web site and search available jobs, apply, or file
a resume for future job
openings.
Newspapers still dominate this category in overall revenue. Online
job boards generated about $1.3 billion in 2004, about one-fourth
of the $4.6
billion that traditional newspaper advertising generated. Even if
online recruitment revenues continued to grow and newspaper revenues
remained flat, it would take a 30 per cent annual increase in online
recruitment spending
(nearly twice the current rate of growth) over the next six years
for it to reach the same level as newspapers.
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