Australian online employment site aims for newspapers' market share

Posted by Leah McBride Mensching on February 24, 2010 at 8:11 AM

Australian online employment advertiser Seek is planning to make acquisitions in the eduction and training sectors and therefore steal more classified market share from newspapers, The Australian reported.

Seek reported a 13 percent net profit rise, to A$36.6 million for the six months leading to December, beating market expectations by more than 20 percent.

"Our view is that there continues to be structural shift from print to online," Andrew Bassat, joint chief executive of Seek told The Australian. "If you look at that trend, we expect online to represent more than half of employment classifieds."

Seek started investing in education and training a few years ago, and its recent set of figures demonstrates that "well-executed growth in education can support the company's market rating every bit as well as internet classifieds," according to the Sydney Morning Herald.