Ahead of its capital markets day in London later today, Randstad announced that revenue per working day in October increased by +4% on an organic basis compared with the same month last year, with the trend appearing to be continuing into November.

The news will allay, to some extent, concerns that growth in global staffing markets were starting to dip given the company had previously warned in its Q3 results announcement that the exit rate for September was +3.4%.

Revenue from permanent fees increased by +21% in October, year-on-year. This compares with permanent fee growth of +15% between Q3 2013 and Q3 2014.

North America continued its solid performance with +5%, year-on-year sales, growth, staffing sales in the US alone grew by +10% alone.

Europe reported growth of +3% in October, in line with Q3 2014. The Netherlands continued to accelerate, up by +5% in October, against +4% in Q3. Iberia reported growth of +10%, against +9% in Q3; while the UK grew by +4%, an improvement against a decline of -3% in the third quarter. These positive trends offset ongoing weaknesses in France (down -4%, in line with Q3) and Germany (flat in October compared with +2% in Q3).

Looking forward to the fourth quarter, Randstad expects operating expenses in Q4 2014 to be moderately higher than Q3 2013.

After a global benchmark exercise on back-office functions and support staff Randstad also announced today a €60 million to €70 million cost savings plan (including between €20 million and €23 million already announced in the Netherlands), which should be achieved in the next two years.  

In trading today, the company’s share price increased by +3.7% to €37.50, a decrease of -14.3% from a year ago. Based on its current share price, the company has a market value of €6.8 billion.