NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 3, 2003--The New York Times Job Market Confidence Index declined by 1.1 points to 92.4 in February, from 93.5 in January.

The Confidence Index measures the perceptions of employers and job seekers in the greater New York metropolitan area.

February's Current Conditions measure of the Index, which looks at respondents' perceptions of the current state of the job market, dropped to 91.3 in February from 93.3 in January. The Expectations measure of the Index, which considers both job seekers' and employers' expectations concerning the future of the job market in six months, declined to 95.2 in February from 95.4 in January. For these results, February 2002 served as the base month, with values equal to 100.0.

"Employers appear to see improvement in the next six months," said Carl Haacke, economist for the Job Market Confidence Index. "However, this is offset by job seekers who see the market as deteriorating."

Additional key findings for February include:

• The percentage of employers who expect there to be "more jobs available in six months" increased to 34.6 percent in February from 29.8 percent in January.

• An increasing percentage of employers, 24.1 percent in February compared to 19.6 percent in January, say that they expect to have too "few people to handle their workload" in the next six months.

• More job seekers think there are "very few" jobs currently available, with 59.9 percent saying so in February compared to

• 55.2 percent in January.

For the February results, 500 hiring managers and 324 job seekers were interviewed. Interviews are conducted via telephone by Beta Research Corporation with random samples of job seekers and hiring managers in the New York metropolitan area. The survey results for each month include responses obtained over the previous two-month period.

About Job Market

Job Market, the print and online recruitment services offering of The New York Times, provides employers and job seekers with comprehensive resources to streamline the recruitment process. Job Market appears in The New York Times every Sunday and is updated throughout the week at NYTimes.com, where job seekers can find job listings, career-related Times articles, exhaustive company research, a resume database and valuable career resources.

Through the newspaper's national audience, which includes 4.2 million weekday readers and 5 million Sunday readers as well as the 1.2 million readers who visit NYTimes.com every day, The New York Times Job Market reaches a marketplace of high-quality professionals actively seeking new job opportunities or considering career moves.

Each week, The New York Times Job Market issues research on industry trends and workplace practices affecting employers and job seekers in the metropolitan New York region. On a monthly basis, The New York Times Job Market releases its Job Market Confidence Index. The Index tracks current conditions for recruitment in the New York metro area as well as future outlook for the coming six months. Copies of Job Market research reports are available upon request or at NYTimes.com/jobmarket. New York-based Beta Research Corporation, via random telephone interviews, independently conducts The New York Times Job Market research.

About The New York Times Company

The New York Times Company (NYSE:NYT), a leading media company with 2002 revenues of $3.1 billion, includes The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, 16 other newspapers, eight network-affiliated television stations, two New York City radio stations and more than 40 Web sites, including NYTimes.com and Boston.com. For the third consecutive year, the Company was ranked No. 1 in the publishing industry in Fortune's 2002 list of America's Most Admired Companies. In 2003 the Company was named by Fortune as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work for. The Company's core purpose is to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment.

This press release can be downloaded from www.nytco.com and www.nytco.com-community.

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