Things are getting worse for recruitment firm, Michael Page. After last quarter’s downbeat trading update (see UK growth disappears at Michael Page), the company has now warned it will ‘miss’ on pre-tax profits for the full year. All down to Eurozone crisis, GDP slowdown, etc etc. I guess their staff hiring binge that was still alive and well just a month or so ago will now be brought to an abrupt halt – indeed reverse.
Michael Page’s shares are down 13% at time of writing, to 317p, still a fair way above the 230-250p level that attracted an unsolicited – and obviously unrequited – bid from Swiss giant Adecco back in August 2008 (see Michael Page soars on bid approach). Michael Page’s stock had been peaking over 550p in June this year, but the August fall hit shares particularly hard, as it did for other recruitment firms – including Adecco. In contrast, though, rival SThree seems to be on course for an inline year (see SThree – more contractors overseas than in UK) – which rather supports our theory about ‘diversity of performance’ in a down market.