‘Blue collar’ recruiter Staffline says  its outsourced HR services model Onsite is helping it to maintain its performance “broadly” at last year’s levels. 

In a trading update for the financial year ending 31 December 2008, the company says that as a result of opening eight new sites during the second half of 2008, and a programme of cost reduction, it has been able to partly offset reduced demand from its existing customers.

The company’s core area of food processing, which represents over 60% of group sales, “has remained relatively resilient”, says the company. However, sales have fallen in the automotive, manufacturing and distribution sectors.

Andy Hogarth told Recruiter that the automotive sector had been been “really tough”, particularly in the last quarter.

Hogarth says that despite difficult markets conditions, there are “lots of opportunities” for the company. “Clients need to save money, and therefore that creates opportunities for us because of our low cost model,” he says.

Overall, the company anticipates that group sales will be broadly in line with last year’s levels of £119m.  Profits will be in line with market expectations of £3.5m before amortisation.