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Adecco seeing a brighter future but profits dive
5 Nov 2009Adecco, the world's biggest recruitment agency which took over Britain's rival Spring Group for £107 million last month, today said it is finally starting to see an improvement in most of its markets.
Chief executive Patrick De Maeseneire said: “Market conditions have improved during the third quarter especially in general staffing.”
But this was not enough to stop Adecco seeing a 31% fall in gross profits to €647 million (£580 million) on revenues down by 28% at €3.72 billion. The UK and Irish businesses saw a 28% fall in revenues and only achieved break-even.
Adecco said the first areas in which it is seeing a pick-up in demand were in light industries particularly in France, the United States and Canada. In October the decline in revenues had improved to minus 22%.
