PageGroup (PAGE.L,MPGPF.PK), a UK-based specialist recruitment consultancy company, on Tuesday reported lower gross profit in the first quarter, hurt by challenging market conditions in the UK, Americas and EMEA. However, the company experienced growth in Asia Pacific.
Looking ahead, the company said it sees an increasingly uncertain outlook for the rest of the year due to geopolitical risks, mainly the Middle East conflict.
For the first quarter, gross profit was 187.0 million pounds, down 3.9% from 194.5 million pounds last year. On a constant currency basis, gross profit fell 4.9%.
In the quarter, the company saw 3.5 percent year-over-year decline in permanent recruitment to 135.1 million pounds, and 4.8 percent drop in temporary recruitment to 51.9 million pounds.
On a regional basis, EMEA gross profit declined 5.2 percent to 100.4 million pounds, and Americas gross profit decreased 1.5 percent to 36.5 million pounds.
In UK, gross profit lessened 11.4 percent to 20.9 million pounds, while it grew 4.5% in Asia Pacific to 29.2 million pounds.
Productivity, measured as gross profit per fee earner, grew 2%, despite the challenging macro-economic conditions.
Fee earner headcount increased 0.5 percent to 4,994, mainly with increases in the growth regions, partly offset by reductions in more challenging markets.
On the London Stock Exchange, shares of PageGroup were trading 0.91 percent higher, at 133.70 pence.
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