Advertisers generally buy job packs which may give them 100 job ads per month to use for a specific cost. These contracts generally run for 12 months and each month the company pays their money and they can place up to 100 job ads. If they do not use the allotted 100 ads they are not carried over.
This “use ‘em or lose ‘em” system means that during times when job vacancies may be lower and the full allotment of 100 ads is not going to be used, advertisers may post the same job ad in different industries or categories or may even re-post it to see if there are any new applicants out there.
There is nothing wrong with this – in fact it makes great business sense. It gives the advertiser more exposure and a wider reach whilst not costing them any more money.
Advertisers are also likely to advertise the same job on multiple job board.
This all means that it is more than likely that a single job may appear in the index numerous times – therefore skewing the stats.
Now – recruitment agencies. Another great way to skew the stats. If an employer goes out to agencies to find staff (especially contract staff) they may go out to as many as 10 or 12 recruiters. Each of those recruiters may post an advert or 2 on each of the major job boards – which in actual fact means that the same job could quite conceivable be advertised over 20 times. How does that make the stats look?
Interestingly enough the internet job advertisement indexes are more often used by “recruitment experts” to demonstrate an up-turn in the market where as a declining/slowing trend is much more believable and credible.
Internet Job Advertisement Indexes will always be skew to the positive, so if there are showing a declining or slowing trend one could surmise that the economy could well be slowing, but all of these stats and industry comments should be taken with a
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