Recruitment firm Hays (HAS) is one of the worst-performing stocks of 2024, having lost 15% since start of the year, and we don’t have high hopes when the company reports full-year earnings next week.

Falling client and candidate confidence has knocked fee income for six, and in a trading update last month the firm said its ‘exit rate’ in the fourth quarter to June was down 18% on last year due to ‘challenging’ conditions in Germany, one of its key markets, along with uncertainty in the UK and France in the run-up to elections.

Temp and contracting fees, which make up 61% of group revenue and in theory should be a bulwark against cyclical downturns, were 12% lower in the final quarter against a strong prior-year result, while permanent fees were down 20% by value and 27% by volume.

The firm has cut costs – largely by cutting consultant numbers, as it tends to do when times are tough, then it has to hire new people when markets pick up – but it doesn’t expect an improvement in its end markets in the second half of 2024 so it just has to tough it out.

Analysts are forecasting a 9% decline in revenue and a drop of more than 50% in EPS (earnings per share) for the year to this June when the company reports on 22 August. 

UK UPDATES OVER THE NEXT 7 DAYS

FULL-YEAR RESULTS

22 Aug: Hays

FIRST-HALF RESULTS

20 Aug: Antofagasta, Anexo Group, H&T Group, Wood Group (John), Tribal