In terms of the particulars of this deal, Yahoo promises that the current ties between the newspapers and HotJobs will not effectively change much. When Yahoo first confirmed that it was considering selling Hot Jobs last April, several members told paidContent that that they were not particularly concerned, as most of the benefits of the newspaper consortium was from Yahoo’s ad targeting, not its help wanted revs.

When members join the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium, they are presented with two separate contracts. One is for the display side, which includes the APT ad platform and targeting tools, and the other involves recruitment advertising through HotJobs. That’s one particular reason that Yahoo feels that its members will be comfortable with the new arrangement under Monster. About 600 of the 800 total Yahoo Newspaper Consortium members have the HotJobs contract, and 200 small papers solely rely on the group’s recruitment services for job ads revenue.

While most papers have experienced significant declines in jobs-related revenue over the past year, employment ads still bring in incremental revenue. But even before the job market improves—there have been some faint signs of reduced monthly unemployment numbers lately—Lem Lloyd, VP of Yahoo’s Newspaper Consortium, said that they will have much wider distribution than they had under the HotJobs contract. And that could mean higher revenue. “Right now, the HotJobs members get recruitment ad distribution on their own site and on Yahoo’s site—and that’s it,” Lloyd said. “Under the new arrangement, they would still get to be on their own sites and on Yahoo, but their job ads would also appear on Monster’s site as well.”

In an e-mail message, Peter Zollman, founding principal of classified analyst AIM Group, told paidContent that not clear whether all of the Newspaper Consortium members who were affiliated with HotJobs will move to Monster. The Yahoo contract allows members to leave HotJobs if it is sold. Also, in some markets, current Monster affiliate newspapers have a geographic exclusivity clause, which might permit them to block Yahoo HotJobs affiliates from becoming Monster affiliates.

In that case, a potential shakeout of recruitment ads could occur in some markets, as newspapers turn to vendors like Adicio, Madgex or Matchwork. Or, Zollman suggests that newspapers could form smaller regional networks like Shaker Recruitment Consultants or TheJobNetwork.com.

Looking at the deal itself, Zollman doesn’t expect an anti-trust challenge. “In the jobs-site race, HotJobs never got out of third place,” Zollman says. Considering the array of social nets and professional networking sites, folding HotJobs into Monster will not transform the combo into a monopolistic presence.