(New Coverage) Monster.com – Trefis Price of $12.68 almost 30% lower than Market Price of $17.24

Trefis has launched coverage of Monster which operates the online job search portal Monster.com.  The company’s primary career services business is segmented by geography into North America (constituting 36% of the Trefis Price) and International (constituting 49% of the Trefis Price).  Within each geography, Monster makes money primarily from two sources: employers and job seekers.  Employers are charged to list available job openings on the Monster.com website and to view resumes of job seekers who have not applied for their listing.  Job seekers do not pay to apply for a job but some job seekers do spend money on premium services offered by Monster such as resume writing, cover letter writing, and priority resume listing.  The majority of money made in Monster’s North America and International career services business comes from charging employers rather job seekers.

The international business, constituting 49% of the Trefis price, is the primary source of value due to Trefis expectations that international job listings on Monster will continue to grow while listings in North America decline.  International job listings have doubled from 0.6 million in 2006, to 1.2 million in 2008.  In comparison, North American job listings declined from 1.9 million to 1.6 million during the same time period.  We expect International listings will increase to 2.2 million while North American listings decline to 1.3 million by the end of the Trefis forecast period.

We believe that the decline in North America will be due to the impact of social networks. Monster.com’s job listings in North America have been impacted by increasing usage of social networks (e.g. LinkedIn, Facebook) for recruiting, the success of niche job sites (TheLadders.com, BlueSteps, Dice), as well as free alternatives (Craigslist).  Internationally, both Europe and Asia are expected to be driving forces in rising job listings.  Online recruitment penetration in Europe remains at roughly half that of the US (24% vs. 44%).

Within Monster’s content on our platform, you can see how the company’s stock price is impacted by growth of International Job Postings and decline of North America Job Postings.