Career Sites See Gains in January Traffic
The implications of the precipitous downturn in the U.S. economy for the Internet are many, and include a general boost in traffic for online career development Web sites, according to recent figures released by Nielsen Online.
Web sites in the career development category experienced a 20 percent year-over-year increase in traffic, finishing January with 49.7 million unique visitors, compared to 41.5 million visitors in the same month in the prior year.
- CareerBuilder Network boasted the largest audience in January with 20.8 million unique visitors flocking to its site, reflecting a 6 percent increase from 19.7 million visitors in the prior-year period.
- Yahoo! HotJobs was second with an audience of 11.7 million visitors in January, a 7 percent increase from its 11.0 million visitors last year.
- Monster was third with 9.5 million visitors in January, which was actually an 11 percent decline from last year’s 10.7 million visitors. It was the only top 10 career development Web site to realize a drop in the number of visitors, according to Nielsen Online.
- Indeed.com finished January with 5.8 million visitors, a 79 percent boost.
- USAJOBS attracted 4.4 million visitors in the same month, more than twice as many as it did last year.
- Simply Hired experienced the biggest growth out of all the top 10 sites in this category, as its audience grew 209 percent to 3.8 million in January, up from 1.2 million last year.
- Job.com’s audience grew 24 percent to 3.0 million, Snagajob.com’s audience grew 84 percent to 2.5 million, About.com Jobs & Careers saw its audience grow 30 percent to 2.4 million, and Kenexa experienced a 15 percent growth in its audience, which was 2.2 million users in January.
“With the current unstable economy and rising unemployment rate, more people are heading online to search for jobs, and interestingly not just the unemployed,” said Chuck Schilling, research director, agency and media at Nielsen Online.
He added that career development sites were seeing traffic from people who were “trying to build up their resumes and get a sense of the job market before the next potential layoff.”
- Of the visitors to career development Web sites in January, 3.6 million were 65-years-old or older, reflecting a 41 percent boost from last January’s 2.5 million visitors who were in the same age range.
- “While 65 used to be considered the age when most people retired, we are seeing a trend towards later retirement or partial retirement,” Schilling said.
- He attributed this to longer lifetimes and the desire to “keep generating income and sock away more retirement savings, especially in light of the current economic climate and its effect on people’s nest eggs.”
- Schilling called this an “opportunity for publishers and advertisers to appeal to this niche market by providing content that’s relevant to longtime career holders looking for their next position and trying to shore up their retirement savings.”
- The largest age group who visited these sites was between 35 to 49. About 18.7 million users in this age range visited career development Web sites in January, a 19 percent year-over-year increase.
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