By Don Gasper

China’s online recruitment firm 51Job Inc saw its online recruitment revenues increase but printed advertising revenues decline during the third quarter.

The Shanghai-based company, which publishes a weekly newspaper and operates a jobs Web site of the same name, posted better-than-expected results for the quarter but said that the slowdown in the global markets and cooling of the country’s economic growth would affect its fourth-quarter results.

“As we had expected, the recruitment market slowed in the third quarter as employers faced restrictions on normal business practices and individuals were less focused on job searches during the Olympic Games period,” said Rick Yan, 51job’s president and CEO. “In addition, corporate customers moderated their hiring activities due to increasing concern about global markets and China’s economic growth.”

Print advertising revenues for the third quarter of 2008 decreased 27.1 percent to 83.2 million yuan ($12.19 million U.S.) compared with 114.1 million yuan for the same quarter in 2007. The decline was primarily due to a cut in advertisements during the Olympics, a fall in customer demand and lower average revenue per page, the company said. Print advertising rates charged in each city were generally unchanged year-over-year, but average revenue per page decreased 23.4 percent over the same quarter in 2007 due to a greater proportion of advertising volume coming from lower priced cities. The estimated number of print advertising pages generated was 4,204 compared with 4,419 pages in the same quarter in 2007.

Online recruitment services revenues for the third quarter were 77.7 million yuan, a 6.4 percent increase from 73.0 million yuan for the same period a year before. The increase was attributable to the greater number of employers using 51job’s online services and higher average revenue per unique employer, but third-quarter growth was partially offset by a decrease in online recruitment activity during the Olympic Games period and a slowdown in customer demand. Unique employers using the company’s online recruitment services increased 4.8 percent 62,023 in the third quarter of 2008 compared with 59,177 in the same period of the year before.

Gross profit for the third quarter of 2008 was 04.3 million yuan compared with 117.8 million yuan for the same quarter of the prior year. Gross margin, which is equal to gross profit divided by net revenues, decreased to 52.7 percent in the third quarter of 2008.

Total revenues for the period were 209.0 million yuan, a 5.1 percent decrease from 220.2 million yuan for the same quarter in 2007.

The company earned 15 cents per American Depositary Share (ADS), while analysts were expecting 12 cents per ADS.

It expects non-GAAP fourth-quarter earnings to be 6 to 9 cents per ADS and revenue to be 185 million to 195 million yuan.