Hays warns of slowdown in accounting recruitment

Hays, the recruitment company with a specialist accountancy and finance division, has reported a 25% rise in pre-tax profits for the year to June but warned that its accountancy and finance business had seen a slow down.

Across the whole group Hays saw net fees rise to £786.8m with pre-tax profits of £264.4m, but said the UK business has been impacted by ‘deteriorating market conditions.’ Group turnover stands at £2.5bn.

Accountancy and finance for the group saw revenues rise from £164m, year on year, to £178m. However, operating profit on that fell by 3% to £67.6%.

In a statement yesterday the company said accountancy and finance ‘had solid fee growth taking advantage of good market conditions in the first half of the year, before seeing a slowdown in market growth towards the end of the year'.

Hays operates in 27 countries but is a market leader in the UK and Australia. Some £1.5bn of its turnover comes from the UK and Ireland.

The company said: ‘Currently, in the United Kingdom demand for temporary placements has flattened out and we are experiencing falling demand for permanent placements.’

Michael Page and Adecco