RECRUITMENT service provider 51job on Monday rejected claims that more than 2 million job ads had disappeared from its website this year due to an economic slump, saying a Chinese securities firm was smearing economic prospects.

In a statement posted on its official social media account on Wechat, 51job said Wuhan-based Tianfeng Securities had made an “improper” analysis of the platform’s data using a web crawler program in a research note published in November.

Tianfeng said it found the number of job listings on 51job shrank from 2.85 million to just 830,000 in six months, from April to September.

“The content of that research is contrary to facts,” 51job said in a statement, criticizing the research approach as loose and irresponsible, stressing it owns multiple recruitment websites besides the main 51job website.

It cited the company’s robust earnings as evidence that the numbers were false. In both the second and third quarters, 51job’s revenue from online recruitment rose more than 30 percent from a year earlier, it said.

It did not give details on actual changes of job listings, however.

“Our research department has always strictly observed relevant regulations and rigorously and objectively analyzed data,” Tianfeng was quoted as saying in a response to 51job.

51job said Tianfeng had declined to make a public apology after deleting the research note from its own platform.

Tianfeng’s findings had misled the market and raised widespread concerns about employment stability and the health of the broader economy, 51job wrote in its statement.(SD-Agencies)