Having lost money in the prior FY (see UK not quite so 'resilient' for Hays), the UK operations of London-headquartered international recruitment firm Hays returned to profit (£0.5m) in its current H1 (to 31st Dec. 2012), albeit net fee income (NFI – gross profit) declined by 6% to £109.4m. The decline was due to private sector recruitment (notably in the Banking and Construction & Property sectors) which saw NFI decrease by 12%; public sector recruitment actually rose by 15% though at 27% of total UK NFI, this was not enough to offset the private sector fall.
At group level, headline revenues fell by 7% to £1.73bn. NFI fell by 4% (-1% like-for-like) so NFI margins actually increased by 70bps to 20.8%. Operating margins rose by 10bps to 3.1% despite the 4% fall in operating profit (-2% like for like) , to £60.3m. There was no mention of the performance of the various recruitment disciplines (notably IT) but that may come later.