Robert Walters sees fees soar with China boost
WHITE-COLLAR recruitment firm Robert Walters said net fees for the year grew by nearly half, bolstered by growth in China and strong levels of activity across its markets which the company expects to continue.
The white-collar recruiter said that group net fee income, also known as gross profit, rose 49 per cent to £155.3m from £104.4m.
This echoes the largest recruiter Hays which said that second-quarter net fees jumped 21 per cent as some international markets return to pre-recession levels of growth and offset a sluggish UK market.
Hays posted a 38 per cent drop in public sector activity, but Robert Walters, unlike its rivals is not exposed to government spending cuts in the public sector.
Robert Walters, which specialises in placing people in accountancy, engineering and IT, said fourth-quarter gross profit in the rose 37 per cent, and jumped 54 percent in the Asia Pacific region to £19.7m.
“We enter 2011 with confidence,” the company said in a trading update. “Notwithstanding an uncertain economic backdrop in the UK, we expect levels of activity across the group to remain strong.”