Thu, 5 Sep 2013 | By Kean Marden, head of business services equity research, Jefferies InternationalLike Russia in the 1920s and 1930s, there has been an outbreak of five-year plans in the recruitment sector this month, which hopefully will prove to be more successful than seven decades of the Soviet planned economy.

Hays believes that revived UK activity and structural growth in Germany could allow them to double profitability over this period. Andy Hogarth, the chief executive officer at Staffline, reckons he can more than double turnover to £1bn by 2017. And why not, since the business has expanded more than five-fold over the past seven years?

Most share price movements over the past fortnight are tightly clustered within a plus or minus 2% range, as is the broader FTSE100 index, which increased by 1%. Hydrogen (+8%) was the only outlier, despite the best attempts of a beam of concentrated light reflected from the Walkie-Talkie skyscraper in London to incapacitate a key employee.

Being in the stream of light was “like walking through a wall of heat”, James Graham, a consultant at Hydrogen Group, a recruiting firm located near the building, said in a press interview. “I hope it hasn’t damaged my eyes.”