The results reveal North America, UK & Ireland general staffing revenues fell from €764m (£671m) to €677m in Q1 2017, with North America, UK & Ireland professional staffing revenues also down from €968m to €856m over the same period.

The group posted overall Q1 2018 revenues of €5,692m, down 1% year-on-year on a reported basis, adversely affected by currency movements, with gross profit of €1,033m in Q1 2018, down 4% on a reported basis but up 1% organically.

Expanding on the group’s performance, group CEO Alain Dehaze said: “In Q1 2018, we continued to invest in the transformation and digitalisation of the Adecco Group, within the framework of our Perform, Transform and Innovate agenda. 

“On the Perform pillar, underlying revenue growth remained good, including an acceleration to 10% in France, where we are again growing in line with the market. The EBITA margin was negatively impacted by several non-underlying factors and ongoing investments in our strategic initiatives. These effects will reduce during the remainder of 2018. In addition, we will further intensify our focus on driving strong productivity growth from recent headcount investments. GrowTogether is also on track to deliver €50m of benefits in the second half of 2018.

“On the Transform and Innovate agendas, new systems such as our Integrated Front-Office (InFO) and customer portals are transforming the way we interact with clients, candidates and associates. The recently announced acquisition of General Assembly is a further significant development, creating a unique combined value proposition, at the intersection of education and employment.

“Over the last 12 months, significant progress has been made in the strategic development of the group. We are embedding best practices and deploying new tools to strengthen our core businesses. And we have expanded our solutions portfolio, organically and via targeted M&A, to include leading platforms in online staffing (Adia), freelance (YOSS), digital permanent recruitment (Vettery) and now up-/re-skilling (General Assembly).”

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