Recruitment firm Michael Page has endured a horrible first quarter. Job markets around the world are tough, especially the market for permanent positions where the company does 70 per cent of its business. As a result, the group reported that net fee income was down by a third to £95m.
Michael Page scraped together an operating profit of £3m with the help of a 16 per cent head count reduction to 4,134. The group previously warned that it was only trading at about break-even in the first couple of months of the year, and the traditionally strong month of March managed to push the group into the black.
According to the company, the slowdown is now evident in virtually every job market and geography it serves. In the areas that have been suffering for longest it has now completed its headcount reductions.
When: 13 Mar 2009
Price: 197p
