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magazineWhat do recruiters’ results tell us about the global economy?
Recent results from two of the big UK-listed recruitment businesses offer a relatively encouraging picture of the world economy.
Staffing firms are a good indicator for global growth as companies tend to hire in strong economic conditions and delay hiring when times get tough. Recruiters obviously tend to do well if people are moving jobs which is also a by-product of economic strength.
A trading update for the three months to 30 June from Hays (HAS) showed growth across all its regions. Even the UK and Ireland business, affected by Brexit uncertainty, grew 5% on a like-for-like basis.
Though notably the growth in the UK is coming from placing people in temporary positions, implying firms are keen to maintain some flexibility in their hiring policy and that they aren’t sufficiently confident to appoint new permanent staff.
Rival PageGroup (PAGE) guided for full year profit to be ‘slightly ahead of expectations’ although this was driven by international growth as its own UK division saw income fall 1.9%.
The charts show the quarterly growth figures from Hays and PageGroup going back to the beginning of 2017.
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