Continuing last Friday’s post about LinkUp’s dour jobs report for September (in which 47 states reported a decrease from August in the total number of job listings), there is equally as discouraging news on an industry by industry basis. In September, 29 of 36 industries showed a decrease from August in both new and total number of job listings on LinkUp.

LinkUp, the fastest growing job search engine on the web according to recent ComScore data, only indexes job listings that are found on company websites. The September jobs report was based on a comparison between August and September job listings from 16,861 corporate websites around the U.S. As a result of this unique data source, LinkUp’s job listing data includes no duplicate job listings, no classifieds from recruiters or headhunters, and no phishing or scam ads. Even more importantly, the jobs data is based on actual job openings that companies list on their own company website rather than the openings that companies are advertising for on other job boards or in newspapers.

The nation’s retail industry stands out as perhaps the only bright spot in the job market, while the General Management & Business, Technology, and Restaurant categories showed the largest decrease in the number of job listings.

Not surprisingly given the grim jobs report issued earlier today by the Department of Labor, LinkUp’s September jobs report showed that the U.S. jobs market continues to struggle badly. New job listings on LinkUp fell by 14% during the month and total job listings dropped by 7%. On a state by state basis, 38 of 50 states reported a decrease in new job listings (39 of 51 counting Washington, D.C.) and, even more alarmingly, 47 states showed a decrease in total job listings.

The Department of Labor reported this morning that the U.S. economy shed 263,000 jobs in September, far worse than the 175,000 that most economists were predicting. The nation’s unemployment rate rose to 9.8% and more than 15 million Americans are currently out of work. Since the recession began in late 2007, 7.2 million jobs have been lost.

LinkUp, the fastest growing job search engine on the web according to recent ComScore data, only indexes job listings that are found on company websites. The September jobs report was based on a comparison between August and September job listings from 16,861 corporate websites around the U.S. As a result of this unique data source, LinkUp’s job listing data includes no duplicate job listings, no classifieds from recruiters or headhunters, and no phishing or scam ads. Even more importantly, the jobs data is based on actual job openings that companies list on their own company website rather than the openings that companies are advertising for on other job boards or in newspapers.

In terms of the best and worst performing states, Minnesota, Arkansas, and Nevada reported the largest percentage declines in job losses, while Texas, California, and Minnesota experienced the largest declines in the actual number of new and total job listings.

Just over a month ago, the New York Times ran a story about a job scam in Minneapolis and yesterday, the State of Minnesota sued the firm and its CEO Barry Trimble for scamming hundreds and perhaps thousands of job seekers. The firm, The Arthur Group, posted ads on Careerbuilder and other job boards and searched online resumes in order to bait job seekers into coming into the office for a mock interview and a free review of their resume. After thrashing the unsuspecting job seeker, The Arthur Group would try to sell a range services to help the job seeker ‘gain a competitive edge in a difficult job market.’ After shelling out thousands of dollars, job seekers received no job offers, interviews, or assistance of any kind. The state is suing Trimble and The Arthur Group for consumer fraud and deceptive trade practices and the Attorney General hopes that victims will see some sort of restitution as a result of the suit.

I do, too. An even better outcome would be that Trimble and others like him get thrown in jail. There are job scams all over the place, and they’ve gotten much worse in the current economy. Crooks like Trimble are going to continue to rip people off and steal their money until there are real consequences for their actions. Almost as important, the job classified industry has to do a better job of policing itself and calling others out when they witness behavior that helps perpetuate consumer fraud.

When a free weekly jobs newspaper runs postal job scam ads in every single one of its weekly papers every single week of the year for a decade, there should be an industry-wide tarring and feathering that shames them into stopping the ads. When job sites charge job seekers for access to job listings that are free elsewhere on the web, they should be called out so forcefully and vocally that their businesses are forced to deliver real value or shut down. And job boards that run ads for career-related services should do a better job of screening their advertisers, removing ads when consumers complain about scam ads, and making sure that everyone in and around the industry is aware of and can specifically ban those advertisers. Similarly, job aggregation sites that pool job listings from other job boards need to do a better job of filtering out job scam ads.

Employers, too, need to pay closer attention to and be more discriminating about the kinds of publications and sites in which they run their recruitment ads. If employer advertisers showed more concern and were more willing to use the weight of their ad dollars, behavior in the industry would change very quickly.  And finally, the media needs to continue highlighting these kinds of deceptive, fraudulent practices so that consumers are aware of the risks that are inherent in posting their resumes to job boards and using pay-to-post job boards, job board aggregators, and the services that are advertised on them.

There’s an interesting discussion going on in the comment section of a recent blog post by Alison Doyle between Alison and one of her readers. Alison wrote a post entitled “A Few Good Job Sites” in which she recommended that job seekers use job search engines such as LinkUp, Indeed, and Simplyhired. In a comment, ‘Paul’ criticized these and other aggregator sites as being very frustrating for job seekers due to the preponderance of old listings and duplicate jobs. Alison, in a reply comment, correctly points out that LinkUp’s job search engine contains no duplicate or outdated job listings because LinkUp only indexes jobs from company websites. In reading the exchange, I thought I’d weigh in on how I would define and differentiate sites like LinkUp, Indeed, and Simplyhired.

A job board aggregator such as Indeed or Simplyhired, is a site that aggregates job listings from multiple websites, usually dozens or even hundreds of other sites. These job listing contain links to the original source of the job, where job seekers can then apply for that job. In the case of Indeed and Simplyhired, job listings are supplied by hundreds of job boards all over the country that deliver a data feed of the jobs listed on their sites to Indeed and Simplyhired. Those hundreds of data feeds are then amassed into a gigantic database of listings that will undoubtedly contain duplicate listings for the same job because many employers advertise their openings on multiple job boards. Equally as problematic, the job feeds that Indeed and Simplyhired accept also contain old, outdated jobs that have already been filled, and even worse, garbage jobs that include work-at-home scams, phishing jobs, scam jobs, and listings from headhunters, staffing and temp firms, and recruiters. So in that regard, comments from ‘Paul’ on Alison’s blog are absolutely correct. Aggregators that rely on data feeds from job  boards for all or most of their job listings are very, very frustrating for job seekers (and employers, too, for that matter).

But LinkUp should not be lumped into that same criticism, as Alison rightly points out. LinkUp only aggregates job listings from company websites. We index the jobs listed on career portals from over 22,000 company websites and update LinkUp every day. We do not list any jobs from other job boards. Period. As a result, LinkUp’s job listings are always current, often unadvertised anywhere else on the web, and never fake. So while I might consider LinkUp a job aggregator given the fact that we list jobs from thousands of sites around the web, I’d more accurately classify LinkUp as a job search engine.

A job search engine is a site that actively scours the web for job listings that are only found on company websites and indexes those jobs into a giant search engine. Indexing is done with ’spiders’ that crawl other websites rather than collecting a data feed supplied by someone else. And if the company doing the indexing is a considerate and responsible one (like LinkUp), that indexing is done in an open and transparent manner in the middle of the night when site traffic is low. While both Indeed and Simplyhired list jobs from larger company websites, the vast majority of their jobs are sourced from other job boards that pay for the traffic that Indeed and Simplyhired send to them.

It may seem like a minor or even trivial distinction, but the differences between aggregators like Indeed and Simplyhired and job search engines like LinkUp have a major impact on the quality of service delivered to both job seekers and employers alike.

Go see No Impact Man.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 17, 2009

LinkUp Announces New iPhone Application

Minneapolis, MN – LinkUp, the fastest growing job search engine on the web today, announced the release of its free iPhone application for job seekers. Exactly like the LinkUp.com website itself, LinkUp’s new iPhone app allows job seekers to search job listings that are found exclusively on company websites. LinkUp’s job search engine indexes over 22,000 company and employer websites and updates those job listings every night. As a result, jobs on LinkUp.com and its iPhone app are always current, often unadvertised anywhere else, and contain no fake jobs or scam listings.

LinkUp’s iPhone application, called ‘Job Search Engine,’ allows job seekers to search for relevant job listings by keyword, location, company, or industry. Users can also save jobs to a Favorites list and access their Favorite jobs on their computer at a later time via a web browser or RSS feed reader. Job seekers can also save specific search queries as job alerts and be notified via email of all new matching jobs.

Commented LinkUp’s CEO, Toby Dayton, “Our goal with LinkUp is to offer employers and job seekers alike the best job site on the web today, and extending LinkUp onto our first mobile platform is just another step for us in accomplishing that goal.”

Additional features of LinkUp’s free iPhone app, which also works on the iPod Touch, include email alerts when Favorite jobs are closed by the employer, the ability to instantly email relevant jobs to any email address, and the ability to apply to job openings directly from the iPhone. Finally, the LinkUp app utilizes sophisticated compression technology and is capable of delivering extremely fast search results on Edge, 3G, or WiFi networks.

About LinkUp

LinkUp is owned and operated by JobDig, an employment-focused media, technology, and advertising company that has been serving employers and job seekers since 2001. With LinkUp, the company continues its history of innovation in the industry with completely unique paid search advertising solutions for employers and the highest quality job listings available on the web today for job seekers.

Despite the continuing rise in U.S. unemployment and the mixed signals from the August jobs report (good news relative to previous months but still horrendous compared to historic norms), there are a lot of companies with jobs listed on their company websites (still the 2nd best place to find a job behind a personal contact). Below are the top 100 companies with the most job listings on their company website in LinkUp’s job search engine during August. (LinkUp indexes jobs that are only found on company websites. As a result, the jobs are always current, often unadvertised, and never fake).

Continuing yesterday’s post about LinkUp’s encouraging jobs data for August (in which 49 states reported an increase from July in the total number of job listings), there is equally encouraging news on an industry by industry basis. In August, 35 of 37 industries showed an increase from July in the total number of job listings on LinkUp. In terms of new job listings posted during the month, 23 sectors showed an increase from July.

LinkUp is the fastest growing job search engine on the web, indexing jobs exclusively from company websites (16,000 company websites in July). LinkUp’s index is updated every night, and does not include any job postings from other job boards. As a result, LinkUp jobs are always current, often unadvertised anywhere else on the web, and contain no duplicate listings, fake jobs, work at home scams, or other bogus jobs.

Consulting & Freelance, Insurance, and Intern positions showed the largest percentage increase in new job listings from July, while Healthcare, General Management & Business, and Administrative & Clerical showed the largest increase in the number of new job listings.

The Department of Labor released its jobs report for August last Friday,  and despite the fact that 216,000 more jobs were lost and unemployment rose to 9.7% (a 26-year high), the monthly job losses were the smallest of any month this year. The fact that we’re celebrating what would normally be considered abysmal job losses is a clear sign of how brutal the ‘Great Recession’ has been to the nation’s economy in general and the labor market in particular, but it is a sign, nevertheless, that the economy is definitely turning. And LinkUp’s jobs report from August offers further encouraging evidence.

Almost half of the states in the U.S. (including Washington, D.C.) showed an increase in the number of new job listings on LinkUp, and all but 2 states showed an increase in the number of total job listings. Overall, the number of new job listings in the U.S. was flat from July, and total job listings rose by 51,346 jobs or 11%.

LinkUp, the fastest growing job search engine on the web, indexes job listings found on only on company web sites (16,891 company sites in July). Unlike other job search engines such as Indeed or Simplyhired, LinkUp does not aggregate jobs from other job boards but rather aggregates and publishes only jobs pulled directly from company websites themselves. As a result, job listings found on LinkUp are always current, often unadvertised, and never fake. More importantly in terms of the relevancy of job listing data, there are no duplicate jobs on LinkUp because the job search engine only indexes jobs from a single source – the employer’s website itself.

In terms of the best and worst performing states, Minnesota, California, and Florida added the most new job listings, while Utah, Connecticut, and Wyoming experienced the largest declines in the actual number of new job listings.

Not surprisingly, there’s been a ton of news of late surrounding the daily newspaper industry, but the summary of it all is that as bad as things are for the dailies, these businesses are incredibly gifted at finding new, imaginative ways to make things even worse.

• Newspaper revenues are down 29%, and papers around the country continue to crater. Freedom Communications, owner of 33 dailies (including the Orange County Register) and 70 weekly newspapers, filed for bankruptcy this week while the San Francisco Chronicle is cutting more employees. Ann Arbor lost its daily entirely, the L.A. Times is restructuring its sales force (as if that’ll help in the least), and Rupert has shuttered his free London Paper. With no attractive offers, the Austin American Statesman was taken off the block, while local investors purchased dailies in Philadelphia and bidders are emerging for the Boston Globe.

• Want to see local movie listings in the paper? Sorry.

• The debate over paid news continues to rage with more stories here and here.

• Rather than charging for online news, maybe the answer is better distribution through e-readers or ‘hyperdistribution.’

• Due to a string of bankruptcies that have placed media companies into the hands of creditors (like some cruel game of hot potato), the largest publisher in the country at the moment is….J.P. Morgan. The Banking giant now controls Readers Digest, Source Interlink Media and American Media Inc. which have combined revenue of just over $5 billion.

• Local news is a big deal these days and is being looked to as the savior for local dailies (as if it hadn’t always been). As everyone except daily newspaper publishers has known for years and years, the strategy of gutting local coverage in favor of generic AP stories and reruns from other newspapers has proved fatal for almost every local daily in the country. Now, after virtually every newspaper in the country is either on its last legs or already in bankruptcy, local news is back in favor.

• Local news is even big enough to be fueling some M&A activity. Local blog site Examiner.com has acquied NowPublic for an undisclosed sum. NowPublic raised $10.6 million last summer from lead investor Rho Ventures and seed investors Brightspark and the Working Opportunity Fund.

• Even the most dysfunctional paper in the country is seeing the local light. The Tribune Company has started a local blog network to boost its online coverage of all things local. Too little, too late, I’m sure, and they’ll undoubtedly find a way to screw it up, but at least they got the right answer eventually.

• Speaking of the most dysfunctional paper in the country, Tribune has finally sold the Cubs. Unfortuantely, only now is the greatest fraud in the industry’s final chapter receiving the scrutiny it should have from the very start.

• And finally, in the most baffling, head-scratch-inducing development over recent weeks, the same businesses that were slow to appreciate and effectively leverage the digital tsunami that swept across the industry are now letting go of the very people who have any chance of saving them.

It continues to dumbfound me how much this industry enjoys digging its own grave.