Staffline helped by Welfare to Work and growing recruitment
RECRUITMENT and outsourcing group Staffline yesterday topped forecasts with a 32 per cent surge in underlying profits for the first six months of the year.
Revenues rose 14 per cent to £187.2m, while underlying profits before tax jumped to £4.9m.
Staffline said its Welfare to Work programme in Birmingham delivered “significant numbers of long term unemployed back into sustainable work”.
The firm said its scheme, in year two of a five year contract, was the highest-performing area out of the 40 outsourced by the Department for Work and Pensions – and it swung to a profit of £0.7m for the period.
“We are still seeing a strong pipeline of new business enquiries from both new and existing customers and believe increasing regulatory and budgetary pressures will continue to drive strong levels of demand for our services,” said chief executive Andy Hogarth in a statement yesterday.
“We have started the second half well, buoyed by the recent hot weather which has seen a significant increase in demand for contractors from many of our clients, reflected in the strong retail figures for July.”
Liberum Capital analysts said the results were ahead of expectations, but added that fragile consumer confidence could keep a lid on growth in the second half of the year.