Alluding to the extreme diversity in regional performance at London-headquartered international recruitment firm Hays, CEO Alistair Cox described the markets as ‘multi-speed’. Unfortunately, there was more braking than acceleration which once again dragged down group net fee income (NFI – gross profit) for Q1 (to 30th Sept.) by 4% yoy (1% like-for-like).
As we commented with much smaller peer Michael Page yesterday (see Michael Page warns after ‘challenging’ quarter), there seems to be no region that is consistently good (or bad) across the players. For example, while Michael Page suffered in EMEA (NFI down 16%), it was Hays’ only growth region (+5% ).
Hays’ UK operations saw NFI fall by 9%, though this belied 10% growth in public sector recruitment, heavily outweighed by a 14% decline in private sector (notably Banking and Construction). Hays lost money in the UK in the prior quarter (see UK not quite so 'resilient' for Hays) and continues to cut costs.
Cox sees no let-up in these ‘multi-speed’ conditions. Indeed, with the news that the IMF has cut its 2013 global growth forecasts, it sounds like there’s more ‘braking’ to come.