They can't beat them, so newspapers join online classifieds.

With Internet job sites eating into newspaper help-wanted advertising, the parent company of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group has reached a deal with Yahoo Inc. to share employment ads with the portal's help-wanted site.

Under the deal, MediaNews Group Inc. is paying Yahoo to post classified employment ads on the Yahoo Hot Jobs site, one of the most popular help-wanted Web pages. Neither MediaNews nor Yahoo would disclose the financial terms of the deal.

In the three weeks since the partnership launched, more than 6,500 help-wanted ads from MediaNews' Los Angeles Newspaper Group--which includes the Daily News and eight smaller papers--have appeared on the HotJobs site.

MediaNews joins several other newspaper publishers in embracing the Internet as an ally and not just a threat to classified employment advertising. Web sites such as Monster.com, Craigslist.org and HotJobs have siphoned millions of dollars in employment advertising from newspapers in recent years.

The owner of the Los Angeles Times, Tribune Co., is part owner of CareerBuilder.com, a web site founded in 1995 and also partly owned by the country's two largest newspaper publishers, Gannett Co. and Knight Ridder Inc. Monster.com and Craigslist.org do not have partnerships with newspaper companies,

Classified help-wanted advertising in daily newspapers plummeted to $4 billion in 2003 from $8.7 billion in 2000, according to the Newspaper Association of America. Some of that decline has been attributed to a weak economy.

Executives with Denver-based MediaNews Group declined to release specific numbers about classified advertising at the privately held company.

Eric Grilly, president of MediaNews Group Interactive, said the deal with Yahoo will help reach younger Interact users as well as newspaper readers, who skew older.

"We saw a tremendous complement with Yahoo," said Grilly, who expects the labor market to bounce back, leading to a resurgence of advertising. "We found an audience that newspapers quite honestly aren't reaching, which is the 18- to 34-year-old market."

MediaNews is the first newspaper company to establish a partnership with Yahoo on help-wanted advertising. Under the deal, employers who place ads in the newspapers get listings on Yahoo HotJobs, as well as the newspaper's own Web site. Employers who put listings on HotJobs get space on the newspaper Web sites but not necessarily in the print version. MediaNews pays Yahoo an undisclosed amount whenever a user looks up an ad placed through the newspaper on Hot Jobs.

"This isn't doubling our content, but it's great content for the Yahoo Hot Jobs users," said Dan Finnigan, executive vice president and general manager of Hot Jobs.

Peter Zollman, founder of Classified Intelligence LLC, a Florida consultant to newspaper companies and online classified sites, said newspapers are wise to join with employment Web sites to assure larger audiences for ads. "I don't think anyone would disagree that online job sites have had a significant negative effect on the newspaper industry and newspapers," he said.

Newspapers likely will remain a venue for help-wanted ads and deals with Web sites would perpetuate that role, he said.

Renee LaBran, who helped found Career-Builder, said MediaNews was smart to team up with an established employment Web site rather than continue on its own.

"It totally makes sense from directions," said LaBran, now a general partner at Rustic Canyon Partners, a venture capital firm. "Newspapers really need to get into the interactive space to stay relevant."

Surf Party

Popular non-work Web sites used by
survey respondents.

News                                 81%
Personal e-mail                      61%
Online Banking                       58%
Travel                               56%
Shopping                             52%

Source: Websense Inc. survey conducted by Harris Interactive