According to the Freedom of Information Act, millions in funding have been slashed from newspaper-based job advertisements by local authorities in Scotland. These figured indicate a considerable change from traditional recruitment for jobs to online methods. Some councils are abandoning submitting job advertisements to newspapers completely.
This move will save taxpayer money, but it is dealing a significant blow to the income of local newspapers. These local newspapers have always depended on the revenue from advertisements of local job opportunities, but no longer.
This is a good thing for the taxpayer as a whole as it is saving money and research also points to the fact that over 50% of job seekers would never use a newspaper to look for a job now. This trend is also likely to continue.
The most significant spending cut has been performed by Scotland’s biggest local authority, the Glasgow City Council. In the 2007-2008 year, they spent £668,000 on job recruitment advertisements – however, in the 2009-2010 year, this was cut by over a half million pounds, leaving only £137,979. A minor percentage of this drop in funding has been caused by fewer career opportunities that need to be filled, but the larger portion of it was caused by a rise in online job advertisement postings.
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