Two of NZ's biggest job sites to merge

4.40pm

Two of the biggest employment websites in New Zealand are to merge with the sale of Haines NZ Limited's nzjobs.co.nz website to SEEK (NZ) Ltd.

The nzjobs website will eventually be merged with seek.co.nz, currently the largest employment website in New Zealand.

Haines chairman David Wilson says that nzjobs was established in 1998 so that Haines could offer its clients an effective online recruitment advertising solution. "However, six years later, the market has matured. New players have entered and we no longer need to own an employment website in order to offer an online recruitment advertising service to our customers," he says.

"Both businesses and job seekers will benefit from the merger," says SEEK (NZ) General Manager Jude Manuel. She says there is a natural fit between the two websites and the merger will create an even more effective marketplace for employers and job seekers.

"Job seekers will soon be able to search a database of an estimated 6500 current New Zealand vacancies. That's the largest employment marketplace in the country. We expect some 190,000 New Zealand job seekers will visit seek.co.nz each month, once nzjobs is integrated. That number of candidates will generate even better results for advertisers.

"There'll be more jobs and more job seekers in the one place."

Advertising for staff on the web has been rapidly adopted by organisations in most sectors in New Zealand. The number of ads published on seek.co.nz has grown 174 per cent between January 2003 and January 2004. The number of visitors has grown 76 per cent in the past year alone.

Established in 1983, Haines NZ Limited is New Zealand's largest employment communications agency. It places more than 35,000 advertisements each year for a wide range of private and public sector clients.

SEEK (NZ) is a subsidiary of SEEK Ltd, a private company based in Melbourne, which produces Australia's largest employment website.