West Australian Newspapers Ltd, the parent company of newspaper The West Australian, has revised its forecasted earnings downwards this financial year because of poor sales in its recruitment and real estate classifieds.

Just three months ago, WAN expected to make a A$108million ($81.5million U.S.) profit over FY2009-2010. This week that figure was revised to somewhere between $93 million to $98 million after the group’s third-quarter earnings fell by 36 percent. In FY2008-2009, WAN’s profit was A$121.9 million.

Western Australia has been the center of Australia’s recent resources boom. The West Australian, the state’s only daily newspaper, saw its classifieds earnings rise considerably on the back of vibrant recruitment and real estate markets.

In fact, jobs listings in the paper more than doubled in the decade up to 2008.

But the state’s economy has suffered as a result of weakened global demand for resources and the number of employment listings in the newspaper (and to a lesser extent real estate listings) has shrunk accordingly – so much so that WAN CEO Chris Wharton told investors to expect a 25 percent reduction in profit this financial year.

“This has been a very difficult quarter, with further deterioration in the advertising market, particularly in the employment and real estate categories,” Wharton said.