Press Release: London, 4 February 2010 – Online recruitment is the only channel to grow in 2009, overtaking print advertising and recruitment agencies in terms of job placements.
 
New research from PeoplePerHour.com into the three principal recruitment channels – print advertising, agencies and online advertising (including job boards and classifieds) – demonstrates that placing jobs online became the most popular way for businesses to recruit staff in 2009.

Despite 2009 being one of the worst job markets ever, the number of jobs placed by online channels grew in absolute terms by 16 percent, becoming the largest medium for job placements for the first time. The growth in online is partly at the expense of the more expensive traditional channels like recruitment agencies and print advertising which shrunk 15 percent and 21 percent respectively.

PeoplePerHour.com expects this trend to continue even after recovery. In 2009, online recruitment channels commanded a 37 percent share of all jobs placed in the UK. By 2011, PeoplePerHour.com expects this figure to rise to 42 percent.

PeoplePerHour.com’s research is supported by a survey of 530 small businesses. This reveals that the two main reasons for the growing popularity of online hiring are the lower cost to the client and the transition to smaller jobs under flexible contracts. Flexibility was rated as the main benefit by 38 percent of survey respondents, who indicated that they are reluctant to scale up their team in the wake of the recession and are hiring contractors or freelancers instead, in most cases online.

PeoplePerHour.com estimates that the online share of recruitment market spend will grow to 16 percent by 2010.

“The benefits of hiring online are clear,” says PeoplePerHour.com founder and CEO, Xenios Thrasyvoulou. “Whether the recession is over or not, employers are waking up to the realisation that they can find, hire and manage great talent online for a fraction of the cost and without the burden and red tape associated with traditional hiring. The connectivity and cost effectiveness of the internet renders traditional models uncompetitive, and slowly – but surely – obsolete”

Click here to read the second PeoplePerHour.com Small Business Review report in full.