Google+

Friday 7 August 2009

eMarketer: Consumers Flock to Career Sites

Job search sites have been one of the few categories to experience a boom during the recession. With the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting a 9.5% unemployment rate in June 2009, the category’s growth shows little sign of stopping.

June 2009 data from comScore pegged growth in unique visitors to career resource sites at 10% over the previous year, with seven of the top 10 sites seeing at least double-digit increases. More than 65 million visitors checked out career sites in June.

CareerBuilder.com, the top site in the category, saw a slight decline year over year, but still held firmly on to first place with more than 21 million unique visitors. Yahoo! HotJobs and Monster rounded out the top three.

“The top three sites in the category—CareerBuilder, HotJobs and Monster—have maintained their leadership positions for several years now, but there are also a few upstarts in the industry making some noise,” said Jeff Hackett, comScore senior vice president, in a statement.

“Certainly with millions of Americans reevaluating their careers right now there is opportunity for continued growth and innovation in this segment of the online marketplace.”

The most popular search term on career sites in June was “customer service,” with “warehouse” not far behind.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project also found high usage of job search sites in a spring 2009 study of the recession’s impact on consumers. Among Internet users who were “hit hard” by the recession, 47% went online to search for job information. Even among those less affected, 34% did the same.

Consumers may be discouraged in the poor economic climate, but at least some sites are in a position to capitalize on the downturn.

To see the full article, please click HERE

No comments: