Recruiter Robert Walters has insisted that 2024 is not a lost year despite posting another set of results dominated by tumbling profit and and fees.
The London-listed recruitment firm, which was founded nearly 40 years ago and has offices in 31 countries, continued to be victim to the global jobs market slowdown, which has seen vacancies fall across several continents since the jobs’ market’s high water mark in summer 2022.
Revenue at the firm dropped 16 per cent to £459.3m in the six months to June 30, down from £548.3m in the first half of 2023.
There was also a double-digit hit to profit at the FTSE Smallcap, down 18 per cent on the first six months of 2023, from £202.3m to £166.1m.
The results led Robert Walters boss Toby Fowlston to insist that despite the numbers, 2024 was “not a lost year”, after having predicted that evidence of a recovery in the jobs market would not appear before next year.
Fowlston pointed to the measures it has taken to improve “productivity and people efficiency” – having laid of 220 of its staff towards the end of last year – as being positives to take from the challenging year.
The difficulties at Robert Walters reflect those felt across much of the sector. Last month, rival recruiter Page Group was forced to issue a profit warning after assessing – like Robert Walters – that there were “no immediate signs of improvement” in the jobs market.
FTSE 250 headhunter Hays issued a similar warning on profits in January, which was accompanied by the announcement of “cost reduction and efficiency programmes”.
Fowlston, who has been chief executive at Robert Walters since spring 2023, said: “During the first half, the business continued to experience challenging hiring market conditions.
“This reflects the sustained period of lower client and candidate confidence impacting the sector since hiring markets reached their most recent peak in the second quarter of 2022. This had a marked impact on our financial performance during the first half.”