Recruiters Page and Robert Walters reduce headcount in tough labour market

Recruiters Page Group and Robert Walters both said they had reduced the number of people they put into work last year as they dealt with tougher labour markets.

Robert Walters said its headcount was down 9% to 3,980 at the end of December, while Page’s reduced by 15.7% to 7,859.

Robert Walters said its net fee income dipped 10% to £386.8 million in 2023, as its pre-tax profit fell 63% to £20.8 million in the same period.

In the UK its net fee income sank 18% while in London it plummeted 29% as the financial services and technology sectors retrenched.

The company was also struggling elsewhere in the world.

“In 2023 we saw the anticipated bounce-back in the Chinese economy fail to materialise, and consolidation of a sharply rising interest rate cycle across many countries, with a resultant cooling in global labour markets,” it said.

The Asia-Pacific region, which accounts for 43% of its fees, saw fees down 9%. Among the countries in the region, Australia was down 19% while Japan dropped 1%.

In Europe, which accounts for a third of fees, things were flat, largely due to a stand-out performance from Belgium where net fee income rose 21% and Germany, where it rose 8%.

These offset falls in France and the Netherlands.

Separately, Page Group said that its profit had dropped 39.6% to £117.4 million.

For both companies they were coming down from previous records. In 2022 Page Group’s headcount peaked in around September that year, while Robert Walters net fee income reached a record high of £428.2 million over the year.

But because Page reduced its headcount by 1,092 people in 2023, it managed to keep its gross profit per fee earner at the same record levels as it had reached in 2022.