Continental Europe “is the biggest opportunity” for white-collar professional recruiters, according to Paul Venables (right), group finance director of international professional recruiter Hays.

After Hays announced an 8% rise in group net fee income (NFI) for the first quarter compared to Q1 2014, Venables told Recruiter that Continental Europe had finally put the Euro-crisis behind it. “It is the biggest opportunity because you have got very large developed economies who pay very large levels of wages, with a real skill shortage in engineering and IT; there are a lot of opportunities.” 

Venables added that Germany alone generates £60m profit for Hays, which has offices in 33 countries. 

“Europe is the most interesting because it was in a downturn for longest, with the Euro-crisis, and we are absolutely seeing continued increases in activity levels there,” Venables explained.

He pointed to Spain, where Hays grew NFI by 47% on the back of a 30% rise in the previous year, as a good example: “That is not about companies trying to increase their headcount that is about candidates being confident enough, saying ‘I haven’t changed jobs for five or six years, I need to develop my career, and I am going to move on to a new opportunity’.”

Reflecting the strength of the market in Continental Europe, Venables said Hays had put its largest headcount investment into the region. “This is partially because it still a very immature market with a lot of first time outsourcing opportunities,” he explained. 

Venables said that global economic concerns over the slowdown in China were not having a material effect on clients’ hiring. “Barring Brazil and Canada, we had positive growth in every other country in the world, and our clients are generally replacing leavers. 

“There is a little bit more cost control by companies than there was a year ago, but the universal position among our client base is if somebody leaves them they will replace them. If they have got important projects … whether it is engineering, manufacturing or IT, they are continuing to deliver them.”

He went on to say companies have seen all the data of an economic slowdown coming out of China, but they are much more concerned with their own order books. “We might see slightly more modest growth but everything we are seeing is consistent with continued growth.”

Referring to the UK, Venables explained that while NFI hadn’t accelerated in September as the company had expected (6% compared to the 8-10% expected), he was confident that Hays would see an acceleration in growth after Christmas. 

In the company’s financial statement, Hays’ chief executive Alistair Cox says: “We have had a good start to the new financial year, with all three of our key businesses delivering further growth… Despite tougher comparators, UK growth was solid and broad based, especially in the private sector.”

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