Monster Employment Index Europe Declines 3% Year-Over-Year

Monster Employment Index Europe Declines 3% Year-Over-Year

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Monster Worldwide, Inc. (NYS: MWW) :

October 2012 Index Highlights:

• The Monster Employment Index Europe reports a third consecutive month of annual decline, recording a three percent decline in October, the sharpest rate of reduction seen since April 2010

• Germany continues to report decelerating trends but still records two percent annual growth followed by Belgium and the United Kingdom (both up one percent)

• Environment, architecture and urbanism sees its sixth month of consecutive growth and outpaces all industries while Transport, post and logistics reports the greatest decline

• Online recruitment across Education, training, library (up ten percent) remains strong in October, prolonging an eight month growth trend and ranking second among the industries

• Elementary occupations (down 15 percent) reports continued reductions in annual online recruitment and places bottom of all occupations measured by the Index

TheMonster Employment IndexEurope is a monthly gauge of online job posting activity based on a real-time review of millions of employer job opportunities culled from a large representative selection of career web sites and online job listings across Europe. The Index does not reflect the trend of any one advertiser or source, but is an aggregate measure of the change in job listings across the industry.

"It is clear the broader economic uncertainties are impacting hiring activity, as reflected by the three percent decline in October's Index -- a rate of reduction not seen since April 2010," commented Alan Townsend, Senior Vice President of Sales Readiness and Business Operations for Monster Europe. "According to the latest OECD figures, larger markets in the EU are now reporting recession, and even Germany which has been the star performer in the Index, has been experiencing a slow-down in hiring levels. However, we also see pockets of resilient demand across key sectors such as Education, Healthcare and Production, which all exhibit growth year-over-year."

Monster Employment Index Europe results for the past 18 months are as follows:

Industry Year-over-year Trends: Seven of the 24 industry sectors monitored by the Index in October exhibited positive annual growth trends.

• Environment, architecture and urbanism (up 24 percent) reported significant growth compared to the same time last year and placed top of the Index for the sixth consecutive month with Belgium and France contributing significantly to this growth

• Education, training, library (up ten percent) continued its long-term growth trend which began in February and matched its rate of annual growth recorded in September

• Healthcare, social work (up seven percent) bounced back in October with France and the UK reporting the most significant growth

• By contrast, Production, manufacturing, maintenance, repair (down eight percent) saw the sharpest decline in online recruitment since April 2010; demand softened most significantly across the Netherlands and Italy

• Transport, post, logistics (down nine percent) continued to report online recruitment losses reaching levels not seen since March 2010. Most of the larger markets saw fewer opportunities with the exception of the UK

Occupation Year-over-year Trends: Three of the nine occupational groups monitored by the Index in October exhibited positive growth trends.

• Opportunities for Craft and related trade workers (down eight percent) declined for a second consecutive month with demand shrinking across all regions compared to year-ago levels, with the exception of the UK

• Technicians and associate professionals (up two percent) noted some degree of annual growth in October and matched September's rate of increase

• Elementary occupations (down 13 percent) remained at the bottom of the Index for a third consecutive month where this group has continued to see decline throughout the second half of this year

The full monthly Monster Employment Index reports for Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom will be made available on Tuesday, 13 November at 06:00 CET at: about-monster.com/employment/index/17.

Data for the month of November 2012 will be released on December 7^th, 2012.