Welcome to our half-year results. As usual, you know the format. I'll take you through the operating review, and then Paul will walk us through the detailed financials and our current trading. I'll come back and finish off with an update on the strategy. Clearly, it's been a difficult six months. We've all faced weaker markets, and we've also had a number of external unexpected events that we've dealt with around the world. I think the key point I want to make here is that we've continued to execute against our strategy. It's a strategy that we firmly believe in, and we spent our time in the last six months seeking to get the balance right between continuing to invest in those areas where we continue to see long-term opportunity, while also protecting our profitability in other areas through tight cost control and management.
Let me turn to the results themselves. Net fees were down 2% to GBP 553.1 million, and operating profit was down 18% to GBP 100.1 million. Looking first at the fees, sequentially, the underlying Q1 fees fell 1%, but the momentum deteriorated through the half, and the Q2 was down 4%. The main driver of this was a sharp slowdown in Germany, which, if you remember, went from mid-teens growth a year ago to decreasing by 9% in our last quarter as the German economy and its industrial base weakened, particularly in the automotive sector. At the same time, however, just to put things in context, we did hit record fees in seven countries around the world. I think that's a good indication of how mixed the markets have been globally. Looking at cash generation again was good.
Our underlying cash conversion was up two percentage points year-on-year. We ended the half with GBP 13 million net cash, very much in line with our expectations. As per our policy, we maintained the interim core dividend at GBP 0.0111, which brings our total dividends to shareholders distributed since 2017 to over GBP 390 million. What have we been doing? Well, clearly, as the markets got progressively tougher, we implemented a number of cost reduction initiatives, largely in November, predominantly in the overhead areas, and we believe that should benefit our H2 by around about GBP five million. Consultant headcount was down marginally in the Q2. While the average consultant headcount in the half was up 1% versus a year ago, the period end headcount was reduced by 2%. In terms of investment, we added one new office to our network.
We expanded several others, but we also continued to invest in those businesses which we believe offer significant long-term potential. The technology sector is one obvious area, and we added an additional 200 heads into the IT business globally in the last six months. The IT business is now nearly a quarter of our total group fees, and that makes it our largest specialism. It also interestingly makes Hays one of the world's largest recruiters in the technology space. IT fees themselves were up 3% globally, and outside Germany, we're actually up 8%. We're now starting to explore other interesting areas, other interesting sectors such as marketing and HR, which we believe over time can offer similar potential to the tech sector. To support our consultants, we continue to invest in building consultant productivity enhancing systems.
As many of you saw at our recent technology seminar, we've launched several new tools in the last year, all of which are designed to make our consultants more effective in their jobs. Just stepping back, we've been dealing with a world of political and economic uncertainty in many areas, together with some genuinely unforeseen external events in some of our biggest markets of the U.K., Australia, and France. Against that, we've sought to defend our fees and our profitability in the more difficult markets, but we've also taken steps forward to invest in those areas where long-term opportunity is apparent. I think that that's absolutely the right thing to do, even though it impacts short-term profitability, because the long-term potential in those investment areas, I believe, is absolutely undiminished despite the current economic backdrop.
Let me now give you a little bit of color on each of our divisions. We'll start in Australia, New Zealand. As you can see here, fees in ANZ fell 4% and profit was down 14% year-on-year. The temp market was relatively resilient. It was down just 2%. We had an average of around 22,000 workers on assignment throughout the half, but perm was obviously more difficult, and it fell by 9%. Stepping back from July through to November, fees were broadly stable on a month-on-month basis, pretty close to record levels, remember. However, in December, the bush fires effectively stopped all activity across the country, particularly in the perm market, and we had a very weak end to the year. New South Wales and Victoria combined over half of the business, they fell 8% and 9% respectively.
Queensland and Western Australia were also down marginally, but South Australia was up 2%. Looking at the specialism level, construction and property is our largest sector in ANZ. That continued to be a very tough market. It was down 13%, and we adjusted our costs accordingly. A&F and Office Support were also more difficult, down similar amounts. Again, on the positive side, IT grew 5% and HR was up 7%. Headcount across ANZ was down 6% year-on-year, and it was flat in the half as we focused on productivity and profit protection, despite the investment that went into the IT business. Finally, a shout-out to our colleagues in New Zealand. I think the management team there that we put in 18 months ago have done a fantastic job, and that recovery has continued. Fees in New Zealand up 12%. Turning now to Germany, our biggest country.
Net fees were down 5% against a very tough comp last year, and profit was down 20%. Fee growth slowed progressively through the half as business confidence fell and clients started to shift more into cost control mode. I think this was particularly evident amongst our larger clients, which are some of the biggest names in Germany in the automotive manufacturing and financial services sectors. On a more positive note, we did see growth amongst the smaller and the mid-size clients, and we're clearly directing more of our resources into that Mittelstand area as we speak. The flex business, which is around 83% of German fees, was down 5% in total, and that comprised of contracting down 7% and temps down 4%, and perm itself was down 3%. Looking by industry, our largest specialisms were the toughest, so Engineering was down 10% and IT was down 3%.
The newer specialisms performed much better, including Sales and Marketing, which was up 17%, and our Legal business, which was up 4%. Those new businesses now constitute around a third of the overall German fees. We did reduce headcount by 4% year-on-year. That was broadly in line with volume, and it was mainly in the Q2. Again, in terms of investment, we opened one new office in Bremen, very much in line with our network expansion strategy. While things have been more difficult in Germany, I believe the long-term opportunity in a skill-short market remains as intact as it ever was. Our job now is to make sure we set the business up to capitalize on that long-term potential, to continue to reinforce our market-leading position there, because we believe that there's a massive amount of value to unlock.
Moving to the UK & Ireland, net fees were down 4%, profit down 21%, and unsurprisingly, in the run-up to the election, conditions became more difficult as confidence between both clients and candidates weakened. Always happens around every election. This was no different. Temps is around 58% of the UK & Ireland net fees. That was relatively resilient. It was down just 1%, but perm was much tougher, and perm fees fell 8%. The public sector had another good run. It was up 8%, but the private sector, which is almost three-quarters of the UK business, was much tougher, and that was down 8%. Looking by region, Northern Ireland continued to do well, fees up 2%, but the North was much tougher. It was down 9%, and London is our biggest region, as you know, was down marginally, down 2%.
Looking by industry sector, our largest specialisms of A&F and construction and property both decreased at 6% and 8% respectively. Education is a big business for us. It was down 6%, but the good news there is after several tough years, the Education business did stabilize towards the end of the half for the first time in a number of years. IT repeated the success story. It grew 8%, and Healthcare, another interesting investment area of ours, delivered some very strong growth, up 15%. Looking at consultant headcount, we increased headcount by 2% over the half, mainly as we added around 60 consultants additional into our IT business to support demand there. Finally, the rest of the world division, it comprises 28 countries around the world grouped into three subregions.
Overall, across the entire division, fee growth was 2%, but profits decreased by 20%, primarily due to three specific factors. Number one, a marked slowdown in fee growth throughout the half, particularly in China and Canada. Number two, the strikes in France, and number three, the investments that we've chosen to make right across the business. Looking at the largest subregion first, we've got 17 countries in Europe outside Germany, six of which had record halves. The largest market in that region is France. It was growing at about 3% from July through to November, but the general strikes in December took away all of the momentum in France, and France ended up with flat fees over the half. Of the smaller countries in Europe, outside Germany, we had a range of different outcomes, so the Netherlands was very tough. It declined 12% and it weakened through the half.
More positively, Belgium showed signs of stabilization. It was down very marginally, down 1%, but a shout-out to Italy, which was the standout performer this time around. It grew a very strong 10%. Operating profit in EMEA, outside Germany, fell 18% year-on-year, largely due to the French slowdown and our continued investment in the IT business right across the patch. Across the world in Asia, fees grew 4%, including 7% in Japan and a fantastic 29% in Malaysia. However, we did see the sharp slowdown through the half in China, including Hong Kong, obviously. When coupled with additional property investment across Asia, that meant that our Asia operating profit declined 16%. Finally, in the Americas, fees were up a healthy 7%. That was led by the United States, which itself was up 12%.
We continued to reinvest most of our profits in that region to build scale faster in the States. Canada was tougher and Canadian fees were down 5%. Right across the entire division, average rest of the world headcount increased 1% in the half and 2% year-on-year as we expanded capacity. Finally, our usual traffic light assessment of our performance versus our long-term profit aspirations. As you know, our 2022 plan aims to significantly grow our profits to between GBP 300 million and GBP 450 million based on macro conditions remaining as they were in November 2017. I think we all know that the world has become significantly tougher since that date, and last year, we said it may take us longer to achieve the midpoint of that range. I think the factors that we're dealing with now will probably mean that it will take around two to three years longer.
Rest assured that we're still managing our business against that original plan, and we're taking actions to ensure that we eventually get to those profit numbers. Looking first at ANZ in the top left, the combination of lower fees and a slower economy means that that business has turned amber. We still have the chance to deliver on the 2022 aspirational profit range, but there are more risks today than last time we met. Turning to Germany in the top right, the pace of the fee decline in Germany has accelerated with automotive and financial services very tough sectors. With the German industrial base going through its own transformation, I think it's prudent to downgrade Germany to red. It will be beyond 2022 when we reach that aspiration of doubling profits from our 2017 levels.
Again, I am very confident that we will get there, and that will come when we see a period of stability and a return of GDP growth in Germany, which should get us then back to our historical levels of German fee growth. Bottom left, UK & Ireland is still tracking very close to our five-year plan range, and it's outperforming the market. I do hope that the decisive general election result will provide it much needed market impetus over time. However, I'm also very mindful that we still need to get through the details of the future trading arrangements with Europe and to rebuild some positive fee momentum. With all of that going on, we'll keep the U.K. on amber for now as well. I've also kept the rest of the world on amber.
I'm very happy with our United States performance. Encouragingly, France has rebounded very well after the December strikes. China and potentially other countries across Asia are likely to be significantly impacted by the coronavirus outbreak. Understandably, this has caused deep concern both in China as well as globally. We're very closely monitoring the situation. Our number one priority is the health and safety of all of our colleagues and our clients. We'll do whatever we can to provide any support that they need at what is a very difficult time. I think today it's still too early to assess whether the markets will stabilize relatively quickly as they did with the SARS outbreak back in 2003 or whether it takes longer. It is a material uncertainty that we need to manage through in the H2.
Overall, it's been a tough half, but our long-term opportunities are undiminished. I'm very confident in our strategy. We're blessed with excellent management teams throughout the world who have navigated through many periods of uncertainty and will continue to do the right thing for our shareholders, which is both investing for the long term while striking a balance in managing our cost base in the near term. Now I hand over to Paul for a deeper look at our financial performance.
Thank you, Alistair, good morning, everyone. Starting with the highlights of the financial review. Firstly, to summarize what's been a tough H1. As you can see on the slide, net fees decreased by 2% on a like-for-like basis, whilst operating profit declined 18% to GBP 100.1 million, impacted by a sharp slowdown in our largest country, Germany, three external events in December, and GBP 9 million of net reported cost increases driven by strategic investment in our IT specialism, property, and IT capability. As a result, EPS decreased 22%, in line with our dividend policy, the board has maintained the interim core dividend at GBP 0.0111 per share. These results reflect the tough conditions we've experienced, combined with our continuing investment in key areas to support future growth. Coming on to the more detailed income statement.
On a reported basis, net fees decreased by 3% and operating profit by 19%. On a like-for-like basis of organic growth at constant currency, net fees decreased 2% on operating profit by 18%. The difference between the reported and like-for-like rate is primarily the result of the depreciation in the average rate of exchange between both the AUD and the EUR versus GBP. Overall, FX movements decreased net fees and operating profit by GBP 3 million and GBP 1.4 million, respectively, and I'll cover FX in detail later on. Market conditions. Alistair covered trading earlier, and I will not repeat that here. I thought it useful to set out the market backdrop that we faced, how our clients have changed the way they manage their business, and how Hays has responded to weakening conditions.
Over the last 18 months, we've seen a material weakening in global economic conditions, and our group net fee growth has slowed materially from 14% growth in Q4 FY 2018 to a 4% decline in Q2 FY 2020. This trend has been seen across all of our large international businesses other than the U.S. In the U.K., after stable fee trends until Q3 FY 2019, we've seen a decline due to Brexit and election uncertainties. As a result, since Q1 FY 2019, we've seen our clients move initially to reduce investment spend, then to cost control, and then over the last six to nine months, increasingly to cost reduction mode. As our client confidence has reduced and decision-making slowed, we've also changed our approach to managing the business. At the start of FY 2019, we were focused on investment to capitalize on the many growth opportunities around the world.
Over the last 12 months, we've moved to a more surgical approach, still investing in those parts of the market that are growing and which are strategically important, such as IT, while simultaneously reducing costs in those parts of the market that have become more difficult. Overall, we have reduced total consultant headcounts by a net 200 since the peak. As you know, our H2 FY 2019 European restructuring reduced our overheads by GBP 5 million. Additionally, in Q2 FY 2020, we completed a program to further reduce our global overhead by GBP 5 million, helping to protect our H2 FY 2020 profitability. As key Hays strength are our experienced management teams around the world, we will continue to seek out growth where possible, but also drive tight cost control where appropriate.
We've been here before, and we'll deal with it appropriately, planning for the long term whilst executing for the shorter term. Alistair's already covered regional trading, so I'll cover a few technical issues on this slide. In ANZ, we invested an incremental GBP 2 million in our IT specialism, GBP 1 million of which was funded by cost reductions in other areas. In Germany, costs increased by a net GBP 2 million like-for-like, representing increases in cost base, property, partially offset by overhead reductions. In the U.K., we invested an incremental GBP 2 million in our IT specialism, all funded by cost reductions in other areas. In the rest of the world, costs increased by GBP 8 million like-for-like, including GBP 1 million in our IT specialism, GBP 3 million in expanded offices, especially in Asia, and GBP 4 million in base pay and commissions, net of overhead reductions.
On this slide, I've set out an operating profit bridge comparing the profitability in the H1 of the last financial year with H1 FY 2020. Starting with GBP 124.1 million, we deduct the negative impact of exchange on profits of GBP 1.4 million and the 2% decline in like-for-like fees of GBP 11.9 million explained earlier. There are five main cost buckets which impact profitability. Starting with GBP 5 million investment in 200 IT consultants and other costs to accelerate the growth and capability of our IT specialism in the U.K., Australia, France, and Spain. GBP 4.1 million in property costs, which is net of IFRS 16, increasing capacity in existing offices primarily in Asia. These decisions are often taken two years before the offices come on stream. Thirdly, GBP 2 million investment in our IT capability and cybersecurity.
Finally, GBP 4.6 million of pay, mainly inflation and other net cost increases, offset by GBP 5 million of cost savings, including GBP 2 million of last year's reduction in European overheads and GBP 3 million in reduced current year management incentive costs. Excluding our IT headcount investment, our average consult headcount decreased by 1%, thus average consultant productivity also fell by 1%. As Alistair explained earlier, we're trying to get the balance right between investing for the long term and cost protection in the shorter term. Moving on to look at the performances of our Perm and Temp businesses. Our Perm business representing 42% of group net fees decreased by 3%, driven by a 10% increase in volume, partially offset by a 7% increase in our average Perm fee.
The increase in average perm fee was in part due to client mix, where we saw a greater decline in volumes from larger clients where the average perm fee tends to be lower. We estimate that global wage inflation was circa 2% overall, with pockets of higher inflation in certain skill-short markets. Our temp business, 58% of group net fees declined by 2%. This comprised a volume increase of 1%, a 2% increase in mix and hours, primarily due to the relative strength of our IT specialism, net of reduction in German temp hours, together with a decrease in underlying temp margins down 50 basis points in Australia and Germany. As usual, we provide details of P&L sensitivity to changes in key exchange rates. The Australian dollar, and even more so the euro, represent meaningful FX translation sensitivities for the group.
Each GBP 0.01 movement in the annual average rate impacts operating profits by GBP 0.4 million and GBP 1.2 million respectively. The total half one operating profit impact of moving exchange rates was GBP 1.4 million negative versus prior year. If current exchange rates hold for the remainder of the financial year, the impact on the FY19 full-year reported operating profit will be GBP 7 million negative. This is GBP 3 million worse than that at the Q2 IMS in January and GBP 12 million worse than at the prelims. As we said before, the group does not undertake any P&L hedging translation. Moving on to conversion rate. Our group conversion rate for the half decreased by 370 basis points year on year to 18.1%.
The decrease is almost equally split between the decline in fees and increase in costs. I explained the regional changes in cost base earlier in the presentation. IFRS 16 for leases became effective for the group from the July 1st, 2019. The group is reporting this under the new standard for the first time. We've applied the modified retrospective approach with no restatements to prior years. On this slide, we set out on the left-hand side the impact on the income statement, which leads to an increase in operating profit of GBP 0.8 million and a reduction in profit before tax of GBP 2 million. On the right-hand side, we set out the impact on the balance sheet with the capitalized leases and outstanding lease liability, both at the start of the year and at the end of December 2019.
The reduction in asset and liability levels during the six months reflects that after a number of new leases started in the 12 months to June 2019, which led to the increase in property costs explained earlier, there were minimal new leases signed during the H1, and thus the balances have reduced. Moving on to interest and tax, the net finance charge for the first year increased to GBP 4.5 million, primarily due to the adoption of IFRS 16, which increased the interest charge by GBP 2.8 million. We expect the net finance charge for the full year to be around GBP 9.5 million. Turning to tax, our effective tax rate decreased to 29.5%, driven by the geographic mix of profits. We expect the tax rate to remain at 29.5% for the full year.
Basic earnings per share was GBP 0.046, a 22% decrease versus prior year, reflecting the group's lower operating profit, higher interest charge due to IFRS 16, and lower effective tax rate. The impact of IFRS 16 reduced basic EPS by GBP 0.001. On this slide, we summarize the key components of our cash flow. The chart on the left details our sources of cash flow, starting with operating profit of GBP 100.1 million. We add back non-cash items of GBP 35.1 million, predominantly IFRS 16 property depreciation, other fixed asset depreciation and amortization, and also share-based payments. We deduct a GBP 45.9 million outflow in respective working capital, driven primarily by normal seasonality, net of a decline in our temp and contracting business. We deduct lease payment to GBP 24.1 million.
This leaves an operating cash flow of GBP 65.2 million, a good underlying conversion of profit into cash of 65%, which is up 2% on last year. From operating cash flow, we paid tax of GBP 31.9 million and net interest of GBP 0.7 million, leading to free cash flow of GBP 32.6 million. As normal, on the right-hand side, we set out how we use the cash generated. The main items are dividend payments of GBP 121.6 million, representing last year's final and special dividends paid in November, CapEx of GBP 15 million, and pension deficit payments of GBP 8.1 million. For the full year, we expect CapEx to be circa GBP 30 million. On cash, our underlying cash performance was good.
We ended the half with net cash of GBP 13.2 million, some GBP 20 million below prior year due to lower profitability, GBP 9 million higher dividend payments, net of lower working capital outflow. In October 2019, we extended our GBP 210 million facility by a year to November 2024, exercising our option in the banking agreement. On this slide, we compare the balance sheet at December 2019 versus June 2019. The three noteworthy movements are impact of the presentation of IFRS 16, as explained earlier, an increase in the IAS 19 pension accounting surplus to GBP 29.2 million, primarily due to company contributions and increase in asset values net of an increase in liability due to a lower discount rate, and the increase in working capital explained earlier.
Moving on to dividends, our priority for the free cash flow remain unchanged, namely to fund the group's investment and development, maintain a strong balance sheet, and deliver a core dividend at a level which is sustainable, progressive, and appropriate. The board has maintained our interim dividend at GBP 0.0111 per share in line with our policy. Finally, the group is highly cash generative and has paid or proposed more than GBP 390 million in core and special dividends since the start of FY 2017. In the third box on the slide, we have reiterated our special dividend policy. In summary, with market conditions that have been tough, especially in Germany, and where we've been impacted by three specific events in December, we've tried to get the balance right between investing for the long term and managing our cost base in the short term.
We have continued to invest in our largest and fastest growing specialism, IT, whilst at the same time continuing to reduce our cost base in other areas with our focus on reducing the overhead cost base of the group to provide some profit protection in the H2. Our ability to then turn these profits into cash means that after paying GBP 122 million in dividends, we ended the half with a net cash position of GBP 13 million and have maintained our interim dividend. In conclusion, these results continue to demonstrate the strength and depth in management we have across the world, which is especially important in such uncertain times as these. Before I talk about the regional trading trends for current trading, two overall comments. First, understandably, it's too early to quantify the effect of the coronavirus on our H2 trading.
Secondly, exchange remains a material sensitivity to reported profits, and movements since the Q2 IMS further reduced profits by GBP 3 million. Regional trends in Australia, overall trading remains subdued. The return to work in our temp and contracting business has been 3% slower on average than prior year trends impacted by the bushfires, although that gap has reduced in recent weeks. Germany, trading remains tough. Our return to work in temp and contracting has seen a 2% lower level of contractor extensions than the prior year. Since then the actual level of new contracting and temp assignments are broadly in line with the trends seen in previous months. We continue to closely monitor average hours worked per assignment, which are running at 4% below the prior year, modestly better than the trend seen in Q2.
Given the step down in German fees and the difficult outlook, we are again reviewing the cost base of that business. In the UK, overall trading remains subdued, and in our temp and contracting markets our return to work to date has been 2% lower than trends seen in prior years, primarily in the private sector IT markets. As we all know, expected changes in IR35 regulations in the private sector from April may well lead to a hiatus in temp activity coming up to that date and beyond, primarily in the private sector. In the rest of the world, in Asia, China is increasingly tough, with additional public holiday and travel restrictions relating to the coronavirus outbreak materially impacting market activity. This is likely to continue across the whole of Q3 FY 2020 at a minimum.
Elsewhere, growth remains good in the Americas, led by the U.S.A., and in EMEA ex-Germany, the return to work has been solid, including in our largest rest of the world market of France. With that, I'll hand you back to Alistair, who will update you on strategic priorities and progress before taking any questions.
Thanks, Paul. Let me just spend the next few minutes looking slightly longer term so you know where our priorities lie. As I said earlier, we haven't changed our strategy nor our approach to running the business because we follow these same four key themes to run Hays to make sure that we build both a profitable and a cash generative business, and one that's also sustainable over many years to come. Even though many of the markets were tougher in the H1 and we cut costs in those markets, we still made good progress in several other areas. We did hit record net fees in seven countries, including the United States, Russia, and Japan, for example, and we did end the year with GBP 13 million in net cash, despite the lower profit and having paid GBP 9 million more in dividends in November.
We also made good progress rolling out some of our newer specialisms into key markets around the world. Just over a year ago, I talked about the launch of accountancy and finance into the U.S., and that business just grew 42%. Over in Germany, we launched Sales and Marketing fairly recently, and that business grew 17%. I think these are great examples of what I'd call relatively low risk growth, where we take a business where we're already the global leader and we transplant it into an existing infrastructure and management team into a new market, leveraging, remember, the single Hays brand. It's a key part of our strategy to steadily infill all of those specialisms across all of our regions. Another key plank of the strategy is to embrace technology to make us all better at our jobs and to bring more valuable services into the market.
To do this, we continue to initiate and grow partnerships with some of the biggest technology companies in the world, because we believe that technology can augment our human expertise but will not replace it. A great example is here in the U.K., where we recently launched some new services into the Education market to help our schools and our teachers meet the demands that are placed upon them. I think those new services that can help literally every school and every teacher in the land. Our ambition to make a real contribution into that space is very high indeed. Already, our Hays Hub app is now being used actively by several thousand teachers and over 2,000 schools. You've seen this slide many times over the years. We're obviously highly focused on the core profit drivers over on the left.
They constitute around two-thirds of our net fees. As we've shown this morning, each of those three markets have had issues and headwinds to deal with, and that hasn't happened in tandem since the global financial crisis. We're also the market leader in each of these three countries, and we'll use that privileged position to continue to invest to ensure that we remain ahead of the competition. One such investment obviously has been the IT specialism globally, where we grew headcount by over 200 consultants. That's as big as most people's entire IT business, by the way. We added that in the last year, and I think that's worth a closer look. Slightly busy slide. Back in 2008, IT represented around 14% of our group net fees, and it was our third largest specialism. Today, it's 23% of group fees, and it's our largest specialism.
Our IT fees now globally are around about a quarter of a billion pounds, and that makes us one of the world's largest technology recruiters with over 1,700 consultants worldwide. However, I do believe that there's a lot more to come. Remember, these are skill short markets. Pretty much every company in every country in the world needs more technology people. There's obviously a wide range of skills and sub-sectors beneath the overall IT banner, so we are targeting the most skill short areas, as well as anticipating what are likely to be the greatest in-demand sub-markets in different economies. When I think about some of the hottest parts of the market today, areas such as cybersecurity, machine learning, artificial intelligence, big data, Python programming, many of those were very small by comparison just five years ago.
In fact, many of the jobs that we're recruiting to fill today simply did not exist just back then. Between 2010 and 2016, you can see our global IT fees grew organically at around 6% CAGR, and each region is shown in the dark blue column on the screen. However, in the last three years, we've invested both more aggressively and on a more sustained basis, and we've seen the global fee CAGR accelerate to 12%. In four regions, growth has accelerated and dramatically so in places such as ANZ, Asia, and across most of Europe. Today, despite all of the tough conditions that we've talked about, we still grew IT fees by 3% in the half. If you exclude Germany with its well-known economic issues, IT fees globally were up 8%.
I'm personally very proud of the progress our teams have made in the IT specialism just over the last few years, and there's no reason why that specialism can't become more than 30% of our group net fees in the foreseeable future. Wrapping up, we have faced some tough markets. We've faced uncertain politics, but the business is adapting to it. We have a very clear strategy that we believe in very deeply. We also have experienced management teams who've been through such cycles many times. Our priorities are to constantly balance both long-term investment with short-term profit protection, as well as collecting the cash to allow us to maintain our strong distribution. That approach has allowed us to deliver, remember, nearly GBP 400 million in net dividends, in total dividends since FY 2017.
While it might be difficult to predict exactly what the markets might have in store for us for the next six months, nor which new events might grab the headlines, please do rest assured that we believe we can navigate through all types of conditions. We will protect our business, and we'll also make sure that we exploit any opportunities that are available. With that, Paul and I happy to take any of your questions, and because we are being recorded, there is a mic by the side of your chair if you could use that. Paul.
Morning. It's Paul Checketts from Barclays Capital. Can I just ask about Germany and China, please? With regards to Germany, the hours worked point where it's gone from minus six to minus four. Is there any sort of comparative benefit, or is that genuinely a move in the right direction? I know it's still minus four. More broadly on Germany, can you give us, Alistair, how you think the best way to address the market is at the moment given the challenges it's facing? Is there anything you've seen that causes you to modify your medium to longer term strategy? I know there's a few points within that. On China, perhaps you would just give us the latest on the state of play in terms of demand, your operational situation, and the cost base. Thanks.
If I start off with the German hours, I just take some comfort it hasn't gotten worse, Paul. We went from nothing to 6% in that last quarter. I was quite clear on the call that there were some specific clients that had furloughs where they were asking contractors to take time off, unpaid leave in December. The 4% at the moment feels a more normal level, and that seems to be tracking fairly stable on a week-by-week basis. Clearly, we need to see another couple of months first. All I was trying to do was give some comfort. It hasn't got worse. There were a few one-offs in December, but underlying, this is really tight cost control by our clients.
Just in terms of what are we doing about Germany. We've very successfully built our business over 15, 20 years by concentrating on the bigger corporate end of town. Some of the biggest names in the German economy are our long-standing clients. In contrast to most of the rest of the world, Germany is more concentrated. Its fee base is more traditionally concentrated in the larger corporates versus the rest of the world which-