Trade Me moves into job ads

Media group Fairfax Holdings's online auctioneer, Trade Me, said today it was entering the job advertising market.

Trade Me Jobs will allow employers and recruiters to advertise jobs and for jobs.

"Our plan was simple -- create an easy to use site, meeting the needs of the Kiwi market and integrate it with the proven Trade Me platform," general manager Sam Morgan said.

He said traffic was the first and last word in online classifieds "and we're able to offer the most traffic in the country".

Trade Me is New Zealand's most visited website with 2.6 million visitors in July.

"We can connect employers and recruiters with people who aren't actively looking. In a labour market where unemployment is at near record lows, this is a big plus," said Mr Morgan.

Trade Me said it will lower the cost of job ads.

Casual one-off advertisers will pay $49 for 30 days -- a third of the cost of the current leading recruitment site, Seek, while package deals start at $25 per job.

Job seekers will not be charged.

Fairfax Media NZ chief executive Joan Withers denied Trade Me's move would cannibalise its own on-line job ads vehicle, jobstuff.

"I think Seek should be far more worried than jobstuff."

She said the company would run a two-brand policy and she saw the two as complementary.

"Undoubtedly, there will be some overlap but we are certainly very happy with the two sites in the marketplace."

She said much of the jobstuff content was a joint print and on-line proposition and as such it had a unique position in the market.

Ms Withers said Fairfax's overall revenue would rise in New Zealand.

"Everything that Sam has done to date has been enormously successful," she said.

Fairfax paid $700m last year for Trade Me, which was started in 1999.

Trade Me Jobs has supply agreements in place with more than 40 recruitment firms.

Trade Me Jobs has steep growth targets following the precedent set by the launch of Trade Me Property 12 months ago, Mr Morgan said.

In its first 12 months Trade Me Property grew from 1000 to 25,000 listings and is now consistently the country's most visited real estate website, he said.

- NZPA