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As you'll see from the figures there's also usually a less substantial increase from H1 to H2 in any given year and this might be especially true this year as, although recruitment is usually an early indicator, the impact of the current economic situation might not filter through to online recruitment ad spend figures until the second half of this year.
Originally we predicted that online recruitment ad spend would reach £400 million for 2008 , but given these latest results and the wider economic picture it seems unlikely that this figure will be reached this year. There are two schools of thought in terms of e-recruitment spend in a downturn, on one side it seems logical that recruiters wishing to save money should choose more cost effective recruitment methods and consequently divert spend online, on the flip side though there is a tendency to stick with what you know in times of uncertainty and this can lead to adoption rates of new technology and techniques decreasing.
As well as showing an increase in online recruitment spend, the wider IAB figures also show the first signs of a decrease in consumer advertising spend. Overall online ad spend (including everything - recruitment, other classifieds, display - such as banners and paid for search advertising) was £1,683 million for the first half of 2008, but fell from £853 million in Q1 2008 to £829 million in Q2 2008 - this trend is likely to continue with the IAB predicting overall online ad spend for 2008 to be £3.2 - £3.3 billion (compared to £2.8 billion in 2007).
We'll have to wait until March next year for the IAB to release their figures for the whole of 2008, but given the current downturn, expect online recruitment ad spend for 2008 to be somewhere between £350 million (at the low end) and £400 million (our original prediction).
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