The bad news continues at UK-headquartered international recruitment firm, Michael Page. After a disappointing H1 (see Michael Page UK revenue slides 10%), CEO Steve Ingham has warned of a ‘slight’ profit shortfall by year-end after a ‘challenging’ Q3 and little prospect of improvement in Q4.
Q3 headline gross profit (to 30th Sept.) fell by 11% yoy to £127m, 8% lower than the prior quarter. EMEA (39% of GP) was worst hit with GP down 16% yoy and 15% down qoq. UK (23% of GP) fell by 11% yoy and 5% qoq. Best performing region was Asia-Pac (24% of GP) which was 3% up yoy and ‘only’ 1% down qoq.
We are seeing huge diversity of performance between the recruitment firms by all measure, both by discipline and by region (eg see Asia-Pac lets down Robert Walters). This is only to be expected in a downturn, and there is no indication in any of the players’ commentaries that ‘good times’ are just around the corner.
