Online Classifieds Take Hit As Job Market Declines
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday January 13, 2009
THE looming recession isn't just bad news for job seekers.
The slump in the employment market, which has been eating away at newspapers' classified advertising, is also hurting their online counterparts such as Seek, Fairfax Media's MyCareer and News Ltd's CareerOne.The number of internet job ads in Australia fell 9.5 per cent in December to an average 180,535 a week, the biggest decline since surveys of online ads started in 1998, ANZ said in its monthly job market report.Over the past year, the number of positions advertised online fell 28.1 per cent, bringing growth to a shuddering halt in a sector hoping to be buffered from the dramatic sales decline that has hurt print rivals.The decline comes after Seek's joint chief executives, Paul and Andrew Bassat, warned in November that the company's spectacular growth was over for now, saying earnings growth would slump from 37 per cent in 2007-08 to zero this year. The brothers were on holidays yesterday, but the head of Seek's employment business, Joe Powell, confirmed that "the market has got tougher out there in the last couple of months".A Deutsche Bank analyst, Tim Plumbe, said ad volumes on Seek were down 40 per cent from last January, with declines continuing after Christmas. Seek is especially vulnerable, with job ads making up the bulk of its earnings. Its shares closed 4.4 per cent lower at $3.01 yesterday. Fairfax Media's shares also fell 4.4 per cent to $1.62. Online executives confirmed trading had become increasingly difficult. While sectors such as mining and education still showed growth, "white-collar jobs in office towers are really being hammered", said Fairfax Digital's chief operating officer, Nic Cola. Large metropolitan newspapers have seen their job classifieds more than halve since December 2007, with the decline accelerating as the financial crisis took hold in September. Print job ads slid more than 30 per cent during the final three months of last year, ANZ said.
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald