Conventional wisdom is that internet listings will soon kill off print ads, especially in the high volume world of jobs listings. But the latest data from Australia shows that, after plummeting in 2008, the decline in print-based listings may have stalled in 2009.      

When the ANZ Bank released its January jobs data, showing the number of positions advertised in the Australian media, it revealed an overall decline of 8.1% over the month to 134,106 per week, seasonally adjusted. This included 16.1% decline in newspaper listings and a 7.5% fall in internet job ads and comes after December saw a 4.6% lift.

Meanwhile, SEEK, Australia’s leading online classifieds site, announced a seasonally adjusted 3.5% gain in listings over January.

But those figures don’t tell the full story.

When the number of listings is analysed in trend terms, the growth in job ads fell to one percent –  not great but still on the positive side of the ledger. And of the two forms of advertising, internet listings grew by 0.9% while newspaper ads grew by 1.4% in trend terms and are now just 3.4 per cent lower than in January 2009.

Even more compelling than that data is to compare the ANZ Bank’s figures for print listings over the past two years. In January 2008, there were 19,966 job ads recorded in the Australian press, seasonally adjusted. By January 2009, there were just 9,981 – a decline of more than 50% at a time when total job ads fell by roughly a third.

However, between January 2009 and January 2010, total job ads fell by 21.4% while print listings fell by just 3.4%.

Maybe, to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of print’s death have been greatly exaggerated?

ANZ Bank’s data can be viewed here.