Hays plc, one of the world’s largest staffing firms, reported gross profit rose 15% on a “like-for-like” basis in its fiscal fourth quarter ended June 30. Like-for-like reflects organic growth of continuing operations at constant currency.

“Australia and Germany continued to perform strongly, and despite continuing economic uncertainties, our UK business has seen modest improvement,” Chief Executive Alistair Cox said in a statement.

The UK-based company also noted full-year operating profit is expected to be marginally ahead of current consensus.

“Looking ahead, conditions remain positive in virtually all of our markets,” Cox said. “We continue to invest significantly in key growth markets where we see structural and market share opportunities, notably Germany, France and the USA.”

Fourth-quarter gross profit growth

Gross profit rose 40% on a like-for-like basis in Hays’ US business, and Canada was up 41%. Hays includes the US and Canada in its “rest of world” business.

Germany represents one of the company’s largest markets, and gross profit rose 16% on a like-for-like basis in that market. Gross profit in the company’s German IT and engineering business rose by 11% like-for-like in the fourth quarter. Gross profit in accountancy and finance rose 40%, sales and marketing rose 26%, construction and property rose 13% and life sciences rose 17%.

In the UK and Ireland, gross profit rose 5% on a like-for-like basis with the company’s public-sector business leading the way and up 12%. The segment with the strongest growth in gross profit was IT, which was up 15%.

Shares in Hays were up 8.58% in London to £207.60 at market close. The company had a market cap of £3.01 billion.