This is the last City page of what has undoubtedly been a traumatic year for shares in the recruitment sector as even the most cursory glance down our share table of this time 12 months ago will show.

Picking a few examples more or less at random, this time last year Prime People’s share price stood at 113p, Empresaria’s at 119p and Hays’ at 116.25p. All have seen significant falls, as evident below.

So is the coming year going to see a change in the sector’s fortunes? One recruiter to take an optimistic view is Jonathan Wright, Hexagon’s chief executive. The interim manager and executive search recruiter announced a rise in net profits to £872,000 for the six months ending 30 September, from £653,000 for the same period in 2007.

Wright told Recruiter that Hexagon was a “robust business” and well-positioned to weather what he predicted would be “a severe recession” in the UK.

“Companies always need strong leaders, but particularly in this climate,” he said. Hexagon stood to benefit because of its focus on the top end of the market, he argued.

“We have a good product mix of both interim and executive search, and we are not reliant on any single market sector,” said Wright.

Customer enquiries for senior executive managers are “robust” and the number of retained search assignments is “still satisfactory”, he added.

Wright said he “was comfortable with” the market’s expectations of £24m in net fee income for the full year. But even so the share price failed to respond.

The big question for Wright and other listed recruiters is whether 2009 will revive their share prices’ performance.