Randstad nv, one of the world’s largest staffing firms, reported revenue fell 7% year over year on an organic basis in its first quarter ended March 31.

“Trading conditions in the first quarter were initially in line with our expectations, with organic revenues per working day down by 3% to 4% until the first half of March,” said CEO Jacques van den Broek. “Since then, the rapidly escalating impact of Covid-19 has driven an unprecedented deceleration in business activity.”

North American revenue fell 3% year over year on an organic basis in the first quarter.

Randstad measures organic change by excluding the impact of currencies, acquisitions, disposals and reclassifications. In addition, organic change in revenue is adjusted for working days.

US revenue fell 3% organically year over year in the first quarter; the decline was 4% in Randstad’s US “staffing/inhouse services” segment and 2% in its “US professionals” segment.

In Canada, revenue was down 2% organically in the first quarter.

Randstad Sourceright revenue, which includes MSP and RPO services, was down by 5% organically year over year in the first quarter, while Monster revenue fell 20%. Monster’s revenue had fallen by 15% and 16% year over year in the third and fourth quarters respectively. Randstad Sourceright and Monster are included in the company’s “global businesses” segment.

Revenue by geography

Revenue was down across all business lines, led by 10% declines in both the staffing and global businesses segments.

Revenue by business line

Outlook

“With Europe and the Americas recently following much of the Asia Pacific region into various stages of lockdown, we expect Q2 2020 to be more challenging with very limited visibility,” van den Broek said. “We have instantly halted all non-essential spending [and] withdrawn or adjusted cash bonus schemes of senior management for 2020 in a large number of countries.”

Together with widespread governmental schemes, Randstad expects a recovery ratio toward 50% going forward. The executive board will also not receive a cash bonus for 2020.

Randstad did not provide April guidance per market to show the rate of decline for markets in lockdown. It did, however, reveal that is had experienced a global revenue decline of around 30% in the last two weeks of March and that lockdowns had subsequently been toughened in some markets. The company also stated that the French market had declined by 50% in the last two weeks of March and that no other markets had experienced such a sharp decline.

Share price and market cap

Shares in Randstad closed down 1.36% to €33.41 (US$36.23) in Europe; the company had a market cap of €6.21 billion (US$6.73 billion), according to FT.com.