Newspapers Run Jobs-Wanted Ads Free During Recession, Gain Lasting Gratitude

The unemployment checks were running out for laid-off trucker Richard Corriveau, and no jobs were in sight.

His prospects changed when he took advantage of a newspaper’s offer to run free classified ads for people seeking work.

Other papers around the country are doing the same thing--to help out in the recession and attract more advertisers and subscribers.

“There is a public service aspect, but it also has a goal of building the paper,” said J. Kendrick Noble, a newspaper industry consultant.

In March, more than 10,000 people submitted ads when The Boston Globe ran a free classified ad program, said Richard Gulla, a Globe spokesman.

The five-line ads normally would have cost each person around $22.

“No one was presumptuous here to think we could create jobs,” Gulla said. “But if we could match up people with available jobs, we thought we could do a good thing.”

The Springfield (Mass.) Union-News and the New Haven (Conn.) Register initiated similar programs.

Corriveau, 44, of Lawrence, had been out of work for several months when he mailed his ad to the Globe.

“I had no leads. I had nothing in the fire until this thing appeared in the paper,” he said.

After several employers contacted him, Corriveau accepted a bus driver’s job with Greyhound.

Newspapers themselves are facing some of the toughest times they have seen in years.

The recession has cut into advertising revenue, depressing profits and forcing many papers to trim payrolls.

Experts say the free ad programs can be costly. The Globe estimates that its program cost about $60,000.

The Blade-Citizen, in Oceanside, Calif., ran hundreds of free job-wanted ads earlier this year, but probably won’t do it again, said Ira Rosenthal, manager of classified advertising.

“The business is just not out there for us to go out there and play philanthropist,” Rosenthal said.

Barry Haselden, classified advertising manager for The Orlando Sentinel, said his newspaper considered offering the free ads but decided against it.

He said it would be too hard to screen the ads to make sure they were from people without jobs.

The expenditure can pay off for newspapers by showing readers and employers the usefulness of classified advertising, said JoAnn Gocking, executive director of the Assn. of Newspaper Classified Advertising Managers.

Stan Erickson, general manager for The Journal of Commerce in New York, said simply: “Classified begets classified.”