Increasing numbers seek online job advertisements

The release of February job advertisement figures illustrated the increasing reliance by job hunters on online advertising, Seek Ltd chief executive Paul Bassat said today.

The ANZ Australian job advertisements survey found the number of internet job ads increased by 7.4 per cent, seasonally adjusted, in February, after a 1.4 per cent fall in January. The average figure of 89,656 a week was the highest level since January 2001, with the level of online job advertising up 30.2 per cent from a year ago. The ANZ figures were broadly in line with the Olivier Internet Job Index for February which was released last Monday.

I guess one of the things we’re most interested in is the movement away from print to online - we’re seeing a continuation of that trend, Mr Bassat said. I think year on year internet job ad volumes, according to the ANZ, are up over 30 per cent - which is consistent with our own figures - while print volumes are basically flat year on year.

The ANZ survey found the number of Australian job advertisements in major metropolitan newspapers rose by 6.4 per cent, seasonally adjusted, but in trend terms was flat in February.

We’ve seen a year of very, very strong employment growth and very, very strong economic growth and we’ve seen print volumes flat and online volumes up 30 per cent, Mr Bassat said. The truth in terms of what’s going on in the economy is somewhere in between those two figures and the discrepancy really reflects the movement of employment advertising from the newspaper onto the internet.
He predicted the movement from print to online to accelerate in Sydney and Melbourne over the next 1-2 years but said markets in Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth and Hobart were probably 12-18 months behind.

Mr Bassat said he expected little immediate impact from yesterday’s announced acquisition by Telstra Corp Ltd of the Trading Post group as neither Sensis nor the Trading Post had traditionally been involved in employment advertising.

He did, however, warn that the industry as a whole was becoming more competitive, particularly for those who derive a large proportion of their income from traditional forms of advertising such as print.

The emergence of online players like ourselves, Google, realestate.com.au. and carsales.com.au probably suggests it will be very, very interesting in the classifieds business generally over the next 5-10 years, Mr Bassat said. It’s obviously large, lucrative, lots of revenue and lots of profits and there are probably threats and opportunities for everyone. And clearly those that have got the most existing assets are the most at risk, almost by definition.

Seek, 25 per cent owned by Publishing & Broadcasting Ltd, late last month acquired New Zealand’s second most popular employment website nzjobs.co.nz.