It did seem until recently that if you were a recruitment agency in the UK you were immune to effects of the credit credit crunch, no any more!  Hays, one of the biggest recruitment agencies in the UK have reported profits of around £137M in the 12 months to June this year, that's a 10% fall on the previous 12 months.

This year it has reduced it's own headcount by some 400 in the UK and Ireland and reports it will have to shed more jobs yet.  That said, to date losses have been natural turn over rather than redundancy.  The business has particularly suffered in the construction area which makes up one quarter of the recruitment business in the UK.  The demise of the property market has now been passed on to all that links to it, construction recruitment included.

For those looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, Alistair Darling was quoted yesterday saying that the economic crisis is the worst for 60 years!