Recruitment firms take a battering following SThree slowdown

2nd Dec 2011 13:54

The biggest faller on the FTSE 250 this afternoon is the IT and finance recruitment specialist SThree, down 8.36% following an announcement that earnings growth had slowed in the group's final quarter.The full-year gross profits were up 17% on the year, but in the final quarter this had slowed to 10%. In the UK the picture was even worse, with the fourth quarter 7% behind 2010.Another recruitment firm, Michael Page International (MPI), appears to have caught SThree's cold, it is currently the second biggest faller on the FTSE 250, down 3.0%.MPI will issue its next update on its own final quarter on the 11th of January. So far this year it has dropped 28%.BS