Since the beginning of the mainstream use of the Internet, newspapers have watched from a distance with mixed feelings. At first, when it was suggested that the Internet would overtake the newspapers, executives laughed. Now, they may just be crying. Though some were late to pick up on the trend, the major newspapers eventually got their acts together and started their own online versions. Some are even quite good. Now that the real digital age has dawned, however, there is some bad news that will again leave traditional print newspapers left scrambling.

An article in Media Post notes that for the first time ever, online job advertising revenue outpaced traditional advertising of jobs in newspapers. 2006 saw job advertising online edge the newspapers by a figure of $5.9 billion to $5.4 billion. The second number there is nothing to cry about, but it should be another wakeup call to newspaper execs that they better get with the times. Already, we’re seeing the newspapers “embrace the enemy”, as it were, as even my hometown newspaper, the Baltimore Sun, has partnered with Career Builder to power the online jobs section of their digital newspaper.

Meanwhile, the Media Post article notes:

Monster has taken aggressive steps this year to boost its share of local job ads by forging partnerships with newspapers dumping CareerBuilder such as The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader and the Akron Beacon Journal. Yahoo’s HotJobs also made a play for more local classifieds, striking agreements with eight publishing companies representing more than 200 newspapers nationwide.

The Borrell report, however, 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.

Tags: career builder, hotjobs, job boards, monster.com, newspaper job ads

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