Newmonday.com, the online jobs board jointly-owned by VNU and Randstad Holding, the Dutch temp staff agency, is to "discontinue activities".

The companies say that revenues have failed to meet expectations - "due to considerably changed conditions in the recruitment market". And they see "insufficient prospects" for carrying on with their joint venture.

Currently the jobs board is active in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Belgium, France, Italy and Spain. Its closure will see up to 100 jobs from a total of 140 disappear. NewMonday.com went live, with high hopes, in September last year.

Post-closure, VNU will carry the recruitment torch in its key Dutch and UK markets. In other words it's status quo ante; prior to the Randstad tie-in, VNU was already an online recruitment player in both markets, and was particularly strong in the Netherlands.

VNU is to integrate some online recruitment business into existing brand. It points out that Intermediair and Computable in the Netherlands and Computing and Accountancy Age in the UK have leading positions in the recruitment market in their areas. ®