Online advertising revenues at recruitment sites nearly tripled in 2005 - in part due to the role of new market players - and are forecast to overtake newspaper job ad revenues in 2007, according to a Borrell Associates report, "2006 Outlook: Recruitment Advertising," writes ClickZ. Spending for online recruitment sites increased 175 percent, from $1.3 billion in 2004 to $3.5 billion in 2005. In the aggregate, all media averaged merely 1.6 percent spending growth in the same period.

Classified job ads in newspapers increased 17 percent - from $4.6 billion to $5.4 billion - the first double-digit increase since 1998, writes MediaPost. However, the report forecast that by 2010 online classifieds would reach $10.6 billion, followed by newspapers at $4.8 billion.

"One of the things the internet has done is really crush the profit margin out of classified advertising for newspapers, and kind of made the business model obsolete," Colby Atwood, vice-president at Borrell, is quoted by MediaPost as saying.

Still, many newspapers "are vigorously pursing online recruitment ads, and they're doing a good job of it," Atwood said. "While it's true their lunch is being eaten, at least they're getting to eat some of it themselves."