“With the current unstable economy and rising unemployment rate, more people are heading online to search for jobs, and interestingly not just the unemployed. The career development category also grew 20 percent year-over-year among at work users, suggesting that many people are trying to build up their resumes and get a sense of the job market before the next potential layoff,” –Chuck Schilling, research director, agency & media, Nielsen Online.

In what is surely a sign of the economic times we live in today, Nielsen.com reports that there was a “20% year-over-year increase in unique visitors to career development sites, which grew from 41.5 million visitors in January 2008 to 49.7 million visitors in January 2009.” Here are some of the eye opening and interesting facts about Nielsen’s findings:

1. 65+ Age Group was the fastest growing group in the career development category increasing 41% from 2.5 million unique visitors in January 2008 to 3.6 million visitors in January of 2009 according to job blog Cheezhead.com.
   
2. Careerbuilder.com was the #1 career development “destination in January 2009, with 20.8 million unique visitors.”
3. Yahoo “Hot Jobs” was the #2 career development destination with 11.7 million visitors
4. Monster.com was the #3 career development destination with 9.5 million unique visitors

The following is a breakdown by age group the web traffic to career development sites

Courtesy Marketwire.com and Nielsen.com “Web Traffic to Career Development Sites Increases 20 Percent Year-Over-Year in January, According to Nielsen Online”