• by Ross Fadner , December 5, 2004

For the third quarter in a row, the three top online job boards showed far greater year-over-year revenue growth from classified listings than did print newspapers, according to Corzen, Inc., a niche market research firm.

Revenue for the top job boards--CareerBuilder, Monster, and Yahoo! HotJobs--was 47 percent higher in the third quarter of 2004 than the third quarter of 2003. Newspapers showed a growth of only 16 percent.

Corzen CEO Bruce Murray called the difference in growth rates "dramatic." He said the latest report "all but confirms the view that online classifieds will eventually overtake print classifieds in volume and revenue."

Still, the total online job ad revenue lags far behind print ad recruitment revenues. The combined revenue total of CareerBuilder, Monster, and Yahoo! HotJobs was $217 million for the third quarter; print newspaper recruitment ad revenues were $1.09 billion in the third quarter, according to the Newspaper Association of America.

For the online job boards, third-quarter ad revenue grew 11 percent from second-quarter revenues of $195 million. Job posting classifieds revenue for print newspapers fell 5 percent quarter-over-quarter from $1.15 billion.

Erosion in help wanted ads is one of the many threats online businesses pose to newspaper classifieds revenue. Online auction giant eBay, and Internet bulletin board Craigslist (which is 25 percent-owned by eBay) also contributed to the downturn in classifieds revenues for print newspapers.

Peter Zollman, founding principal of Classified Intelligence, an Internet marketing consultancy firm, said that companies like Craigslist are symptoms of an even bigger threat to newspapers--the fact that consumers, especially younger ones, are using different media. Naturally, this shift opens up a new marketplace for classifieds, he said.