Europe’s largest recruitment firm, Hays has announced a further 250 job losses in the UK after a 31% slump in fee income.
The group has already cut 650 jobs in the past year and the latest redundancies will mean 27% of its workforce has been laid off in response to a fall in demand for its services.
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The news comes as unemployment is expected to peak to 3.3m by the end of 2010, about 10.5% of the UK workforce. Next month (13 May), figures from the Office of National Statistics will reveal the number of people out of work has soared past two million already.
Hays said that demand for permanent placements had declined rapidly across all markets, particularly in banking and property, and it expected market conditions to remain tough “for some time”.
