Associated New Media (ANM), owner of the Daily Mail newspaper, announced last Friday that it has bought recruitment site jobsite.co.uk for £35 million.

Jobsite is one of the UK's largest online recruitment sites registering 750,000 unique users on the site during January 2003.

David Hurst, editor of Online Recruitment magazine, told dotJournalism that the deal could indicate the beginning of a turf war between online recruiters and the national press.

Facing further decline in advertising print revenues, news publishers will be forced to embrace online recruitment, said Mr Hurst, who believes that ANM is hedging its bets with the purchase of jobsite.co.uk.

"This indicates increasing confidence in the profitability of online recruitment and is great news because it will raise its profile," he said.

"In the US, 70 per cent of classified advertising has moved from print to the web. This represents an internal conflict in the news industry."

Mr Hurst said that research had shown that at least 98 per cent of UK graduates turn to the internet to find jobs.

"It has been a well-kept secret so far, but publishers are silly to ignore it. It’s quicker, cheaper, and empowers the jobseeker."

• The Daily Mail's website is due to be launched soon, leaving only one major national UK newspaper, the Express, without a full online presence.

Related articles:
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story782.shtml

See also:
http://www.onrec.com
http://www.anm.co.uk
http:/www.dailymail.co.uk
http://www.brandrepublic.com/digitalbulletin/news_story.cfm?articleID=204880&Origin=DB15032004

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