Empresaria Group PLC on Tuesday posted weaker financial performance as recruitment demand remained subdued in the first half.

The Crawley, England-based specialist staffing company said pretax loss widened to £4.4 million in the first half that ended June 30 from £200,000 the previous year.

Revenue declined 3.1% to £121.8 million from £125.7 million while cost of sales rose 0.5% to £96.5 million from £96.0 million.

Net fee income was down 15% to £25.3 million from £29.7 million.

Adjusted net debt increased 55% to £13.5 million from £8.7 million.

Chief Executive Officer Rhona Driggs said: ‘Challenging conditions have continued to impact recruitment demand in the first half of 2024. Permanent recruitment continues to see the greatest impact while our temporary and contract business remained broadly stable, showing more resilient year-on-year net fee income performance.

‘Our focus remains on positioning the business to capture new growth opportunities, strengthening our sales capabilities, maximising our cross-selling efforts and diversifying our service offering, while maintaining rigorous cost control.’

Looking ahead to the second half, Empresaria expects overall weak hiring trends to continue although noted some cautious positive movement in demand across some areas.

Empresaria provides staffing to six industry sectors: Professional, IT, Healthcare, Property, Construction & Engineering, Commercial and Offshore Services.

Full year results are anticipated to be broadly in line with market expectations of a £4.3 million adjusted pretax profit, up 23% from £3.5 million in 2023.

Empresaria shares were down 4.7% to 37.15 pence each in London on Tuesday afternoon.

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