Trading Update

Oct 14, 2020

Thank you, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Page Group Third Quarter trading Update. I'm Stephenham, Chief Executive Officer, and I have with me Kelvin Stagg, Chief Financial Officer. I will now present an overview of our third quarter performance and our COVID range strategy before handing over to Kelvin for a financial and regional review. I will then follow-up with a strategic review and summary. Although I will not read it through, I'd like just to make a reference to the legal formalities that are covered in the cautionary statement, in the appendix for this presentation, and which also be available on our website following the call. Although levels as the quarter progressed. Consequently, the group delivered gross profit of 1000000 in the quarter, decline of 31.9 percent in constant currencies and an improvement from the decline of 47.6 in Q2. We exited the quarter at minus 26% year on year in September During the quarter, foreign exchange had 0.8%. In monetary terms, foreign exchange decreased gross profit by around 4,000,000 For the quarter, Michael Page declined 30.4% and page personnel declined 35 We ended the quarter in a strong financial position with net cash of around 1,000,000. This was down from the 1,000,000 at the end of June, due largely to the purchase of 1,000,000 worth of shares into the group's employee benefit trust to hedge exposures under the group's share plans. Our net headcount fell by 202 in the quarter, a reduction of 2.9% on Q2. At the end of September, the group had a total headcount of 6708 above all else, the health and safety of our employee candidates and clients was and remains our priority. The group's overarching strategy for COVID-nineteen has been to protect and invest in our operating platform. We look to secure as many roles as possible through the crisis. We the key aim of protecting the shape of the business. We've retained our experienced employees who are continuing to support our clients and candidates. We have retained our broad and diverse platform of brands, disciplines, and geographies. We believe this strategy will ensure a react the quickest as market conditions around the world recover and capitalize on market share opportunities. We have continued reopening our offices globally, although returning to the office remains entirely voluntary. Out of 142 open at the end of September, although we are mindful of further lockdowns. We returned the majority of our from furlough and all staff to full pay from the 1st July. Despite this, increasing our cost base over Q2 and the slower months of July August, improving trading conditions meant we generated a small profit in the third quarter. Looking forward, we expect our monthly to ensure we're in the best position to take advantage of market opportunity as we recover, we have been selectively hiring experienced fans from the competition, and I will expand on this later in the presentation. In line with our year to date. We have chosen to reduce our fee on a headcount at a slower rate, down 13% over the same period. We reduced our fee owner headcount by 531 in Q2. Most of these had recently joined the group and therefore had very limited experience or were on performance reviews. The hiring of approaching 300 experienced fear and has meant that our fear and headcount reduced to the slower rate in Q3, down 169. Operational support staff reduced by 33 in the quarter, which maintained our Fianer to operational support staff ratio, at 7723. At the end of September, the group had 5200 23 learners and 1560 operational support staff, a total headcount of 6783. This figure is inclusive of 65 furloughed employees in the UK, the majority of whom have returned to the business in October. I will now hand over to Kelvin for a financial and regional review. Thank you, Steve. This Vienna headcount and gross profit chart shows the unprecedented scale of the decline in group gross profit in Q2 and Q3 and the comparison to the global financial crisis in 2008. Quarterly gross profit due to the pandemic fell 42 percent from 1000000 in Q4 2019 to 118.3 in Q2 2020. As activity levels started to improve, this increased to 1,000,000 in Q3 2020. The decline during GFC was similar in magnitude, but over a longer period, down 45% over four quarters. And monthly cost base through Q2 reduced by 21% compared to March. Due to voluntary salary reductions, 4 day working week furlough schemes and a reduction in headcount of 581. Our monthly average cost base in Q3 was down 15% compared to March which was better than count of 202 in Q3, lower than an estimated bad debt and holidays not taken in Q2, resulting in an increased holiday pay accrual lumbines. Our monthly average cost base through Q4 is forecast to be around 10% below March, in line with the September run rate In the third quarter, reflecting the exceptionally challenging conditions in many of our markets, permanent recruitment declined 34.2 percent in constant currencies, while temporary declined 25.1 Our ratio of permanent to temporary gross profit increased to 72.28 compared to 66.34 at the end of Q2. In MicroPage, permanent recruitment represented 81 percent of gross profit, 1 in page personnel it was less than 52. Trading conditions remained challenging in the quarter and all our regions continued to be impacted by the pandemic Consequently, gross profit for the group was down 31.9%. Our large high potential markets, representing 37% of the group, declined by 29%. Our businesses of technology, contracting, digital, and logistics with a more resilience while construction and retail were amongst the most challenging. Moving on to each of our 4 regions. And starting with the largest Europe, Middle East and Africa, representing 34% of the group. We saw an improvement in trading conditions as the quarter progressed. With a decline in Q3 of 24.5 percent compared to a decline of 42.9% in Q2. And Michael Page business representing 57% of the region was more resilient with a decline of 20% compared with decline of 30 in page personnel. Permanent recruitment declined 25% for the quarter with temporary down 23 In France, our largest country, representing 30% of EMEA and 16% of the group, we declined 27%. The improving activity levels we saw in June continued through Q3, and we exited the quarter with a decline of 22% in September. Our business in Germany, representing 23% of EMEA, and 12% of the group proved resilient and declined just 10%. This was driven by our technology focused contracting business which grew 4%. Southern Europe declined 25% with Italy down 23% and Spain down Trading conditions improved in both countries towards the end of Q3 and we exited the quarter down 14% and 24%, respectively. Benelux declined 31% with Belgium down 24% and the Netherlands down 33. The Middle East and Africa represented 2% of the group was down 31%. Gjerna headcount was down 109 in the quarter, mainly in France and the Netherlands, In Asia Pacific, representing 21% of the group, trading conditions also improved as we progressed through Q3 and we declined 28.2% for the quarter compared to 41.7% in Q2. In Asia, representing 17% of the group and 80% of the region, and were down 23% and exited in September down 10. In Greater China, 9% of the group, we declined 22 We saw a continual improvement in trading conditions in Mainland China, and we exited the quarter flat. The improvement was driven by our domestic clients which now represent over half of our Mainland China business. Hong Kong was impacted significantly by those COVID-nineteen and continuing social unrest and declined 41%. Japan declined by 14% 16% in the quarter, but returned to growth in September following a record performance in contracting in our Nikkei market business. India is currently one of the worst affected countries by COVID-nineteen and declined 32% for the quarter. Southeast Asia declined 31% with Singapore down 34%. We opened in the Philippines during the quarter at country in this large high potential market. Australia declined 42% with local lockdowns in some areas and our offices in Melbourne close. Gerna headcount was down 51, mainly in Greater China and Australia. The Americas representing 13% of the declined 41.9% with trading impacted throughout North And Latin America. In North America, 9% of the group and 67% of the region. Gross profit was down 39%. The US was also down 39% due to significant disruption from COVID-nineteen. Trading conditions remained particularly tough in construction, our largest discipline. We're yet to see an improvement in activity levels and September's growth rate was in line with the quarter. In Latin America, 4% of the group and 33% of the region Gross profit declined by 47%. Brazil was down 40% and Mexico, our largest country in the region, was down 56 Elsewhere, trading in Argentina has been particularly tough due to the additional impacts of high inflation and currency devaluation, while in Chile, grading has also been impacted by social unrest. Conversely, our technology contracting business in Colombia performed particularly well. Sienna headcount was down 22 in the quarter. In the UK, gross profit declined 47.9% in the quarter, up from a decline of 61.5% in Q2. As seen in most of our other regions, activity levels improved as the quarter progressed, and we exited in September down 42%. In page personnel, which represented around a quarter of the UK and operates primarily in finance and business support, we declined 51%. Michael Page, which is focused on more senior opportunities declined by 47%. Overall, for the quarter, temporary recruitment was more resilient than permanent, down burned, respectively. Trading in the private sector was down 49, while the public sector was impacted to a lesser extent, down 41. Having reduced our headcount substantially in Q2, we added 59 experienced fee earners in Q3, resulting in our net fee other headcount increasing by 13 in third quarter. I now hand back to Steve for his strategic update. Thank you, Kelvin. I will now provide a brief update on our strategy. So far this year, following an unprecedented level of interest, we've added 276 fee earners that have been recruited selectively from our competitor With an average tenure for Fiena of 4.3 years, these are experienced consultants who in 2019 together generated gross profit of around such as technology, healthcare and life sciences and contracting, which have also been more resilient during pandemic. In addition, we have made a senior appointment into our page outsourcing brand to drive our offering within MSP RPO and project recruitment. Engaging with key partners such as Salesforce, Dun and Bradstreet, LinkedIn, and Microsoft is key to leveraging technology across is a single instance, cloud based front office technology platform that ensures all brands and all regions can drive growth and support innovation. The data driven platform delivers a modern user experience, making it easy to engage our customers at every opportunity force based platform has been deployed successfully in Poland, Belgium, the UAE, South Africa, and most recent Lee the UK. Further deployments are planned in Germany in Q4 and the wider group in 2021. Spacing Customer Connect on the Salesforce platform has allowed us to fully integrate our market leading CRM and customer engagement programs that have been tested and refined over the last 5 years. Technology at scale dealing with volume and acting as a filter to drive quality allows our marketing program to do more of the heavy lifting so our consultants can focus on what they do best. Creating meaningful conversations The integration gives our consultants full visibility of the activity marketing is delivering, and it gives our management the deep detail on how this is being followed up. For our customers, we're improving their experience by managing their engagement us all touch points, giving them personalized and relevant interactions and ensuring we're measuring our effectiveness for them. We have tested and holding campaigns set up for both candidates and clients across their life cycle with us automated and triggered by customer activity, they allow us to keep prospects engaged. The native integration displays what customer activity has taken place, enabling meaningful discussions with our teams. Candidate campaign start from application and are delivered based on where they are in the live cycle. Talent pools will be targeted to reengage with passive candidates to ensure we have an engaged database for our consultants to work with. Making these campaigns personalized ensures we drive conversion rates. The clients we run reactivation campaigns and trace client contact activity and revenue generate The feedback from our live markets is very positive. The increased visibility for consultants on marketing actions towards contact is a big plus. Being able to see the marketing journey of an engaged For marketing, visibility across consultant follow-up on leads allows us to measure campaign effectiveness Bottom line, we're investing in this technology to make life easier for our consultants by giving them 2 targeted and active candidate and client leads at their desk. 1 of our core areas of focus the development of our data program and ensuring that it provides both operational and strategic advantage recently launched our page insights products across our markets. Page Insight is a business intelligence tool that combines our internal data with global external data sources such as government information and millions of online adverts in an accessible format to present insight it when engaging and delivering value add services to our existing and new customers. Our clients want data and insight on recruitment trends to benchmark externally, understand competitive roles and identify future skills and experiences evolving in their industries. Our consultants have this data at their fingertips giving them the confidence to consult on what is needed to ensure the best talent and enabling them to develop high trust and long term relationships. This is additional least. Another sourcing. This is our newest brand in offering a customized solution for high volume hiring and specific project recruitment needs across all levels of the market We have a growing track record in this area and significant infrastructure already in place, which is why we have invested during sourcing. This will drive our offering within MSP, RPO, and project recruitment to drive future profitable growth in this sector of the market. To deliver these offerings, being able to match whatever the needs of our largest multinational clients. I will now finish with a brief summary S. Through the third quarter, exiting in September, down 26% with some markets such as mainland China and Japan either flat or returning to growth. We continue to focus on protecting our people whilst also protecting and investing in our trading platform. We returned all staff to full pay from the 1st July and progressively bought them back from furloughed during the quarter. We generated in Q4 to be in our offices subject to further local lockdowns. Fearness from the competition, who together in 2019 generated around 1,000,000 of gross profit. These hires have largely been in technology, healthcare And Life Sciences, and contracting. We have a core of engaged, motivate and experienced employees, and we'll continue to support them and look to add expertise. We know the future remains unpredictable. But we believe now is the right time to continue to invest in our flexible and highly diversified business model. Having seen conditions improve in the third quarter, we now look forward to driving improved activity and gross profit in Q4. We have maintained our focus on the long term vision of the group to drive progress towards our it goes. Kelvin and I will now be happy to answer any questions you may have. And the first question we have today comes from Matthew Lawrie of HSBC. Good morning, gentlemen. It's Matthew Lloyd at HSBC. Just a couple of questions really you've given us a sense for the geographies. I wondered if you could sort of hint at what sort of tier of wage or brands are doing better at the moment than others. So is Page Executive doing best or is something that's a more clerical brand doing better. And anything else that you might think is sort of unusual? Is there lots of are clients prepared to talk about moving jobs, even though we're in a recession, just to try and get a feel for what the markets are like at the moment in Labour? Good morning, Matthew. Yes, of course. Yes, we are seeing differences between the brand And, if you start a page executive, which is the most senior brand focusing on the market, typically an industry rate, between about £100,000 salaries to 2.50, they have done particularly well this period. And I think that's logical, so it didn't surprise us. It's logical because assignments at that level can take anywhere between 3 9 months by the time the candidates work their notice. So realistically, I think that they're typically critical roles and therefore, if they're needed, they're needed. And we've seen clients largely speaking carry on opted by the virus and have continued to hire at that level. So page executive has done particularly well. Michael Page has then done beds than page personnel. Again, I would expect that. A lot of what Michael Page does, is technology, is logistics, is digital. Those sectors have done well, but also they a higher into fairly critical roles, where there's almost full employment, people in the sectors and the disciplines that we recruit. And therefore, they've been they've held up reasonably well. Slightly better than the lowest end of the market in page personnel, where we found that some areas of clerical professional work, which is what page personnel is focused on, have been not needed as much and, and, particularly with home working, some of those clerical roles haven't been replaced. And so they've been a little quieter. Now what would seeing today is a little bit of that a reverse of that because TEMP is now doing better than perm, which again, you'd expect at this stage. So as we're starting to see a recovery, it's not, unexpected that clients will be risk averse and will think to themselves, well, we do need some resource. Let's take a tent, and so on. So that's typical of a sort of recovery as well, which we're seeing. In terms of activity, from candidates I think the lockdown has been a period for everyone to reflect on many things, which we I'm sure everybody's discussed career is one of them. Do I work in the right sector? Do I like the way that my company is behaved during a very difficult period if, do I am I happy on the salary? Am I based in a location or an office environment I'm happy with. And what we've seen, is a lot of candidates reacting to that and going, no, I'm not, so I'm going to change either the sector or the job or whatever it is that they're looking to do. Maybe their company isn't operating a flexible enough model So we're seeing a lot of candidate movement start to happen. And I think that's what's helping to fuel our recovery that we've seen so We now have the next question from Andy Grobler of Credit Suisse. So please go ahead, Andy, whenever you're ready. Hi, good morning. 2 for me, if I may. Not one thing to be too short term. I'm going to ask a short term question to start. Not down at the beginning to come back in, at least partially across Europe, what are you kind of seeing on a on a day to day basis in terms of client confidence and candidate confidence and how that's adjusting. I know that's a very short term, a difficult question. And then secondly, on RBR and MSP, historically, you weren't that wasn't an area of the market that you wanted to really address, in size although some of your competitors did so. What has changed there and do you think that you have facility to really catch up with some fairly entrenched, competition in that market. Sure. Let me take the first one. You're right. Of course, we're very mindful of the fact that, there are going to be lockdowns locally in different markets. We've to close our offices in Switzerland, in Holland. And as of yesterday, as you're asking about the immediate Rome closed as well because we had five cases there. And, it. So far it hasn't, the local lockdown hasn't. I mean, we switched seamlessly from working home to the office, and back again. So that's the no problem. Our tech stands up to it. In preference, and you didn't ask this, but I will say our consultants do like to be in the office, the majority of them. They're quite young a lot of them, and I think they enjoy, particularly in a sales environment, working with colleagues and being see with them, celebrate with them, support each other and so on. So in those, in those offices, we largely saw the majority, if not all of our consultants return to the office. And then with local lockdowns, they return to working at home as they did before with no issues with technology. And I think we're just going to have accept these lockdowns, hopefully short term, keep reoccurring. We just had one in Kuala Lumpur. And we had it earlier in the month in last month in Jakarta. But offices will reopen again. And hopefully, that seamless transition will will not affect our activity levels and it happened so far. Yeah, I can see the question about RPO and MSP and a logical one to ask. And again, to remind other listeners, we did engage in that market way back, way back before my time as CEO. So, some 20 years ago, and in fact, we managed Morgan Stanley and HSB DC. Back in those days, we found it with the support systems that we had and with the geographic expense that we have then and with our, exposure to certain disciplines, but weaker in others, like technology, we found we couldn't make it work profitably for us. And yes, we made some it from it, but not with the sort of conversion rates that we like to target. And for that reason, we took a strategic decision to stay away from it, and focus on our diversification geographically and by discipline and by brand and seniority, therefore, as well as change in centralize all of our operational support systems into shared service centers before we engage with that market. We've been doing that for some time now. We've been focused on large high potential markets, now 37% of the group. That puts us much more significantly into markets like the U. S, Latin America, China, Asia, where quite a lot of these and chips come from. So we're much stronger there. Our brands have clearly grown page executives, page personnel, and a much more significant portion as is 10 perm contracting, and the shared service centers are fully operate on, we, we, you know, we're starting to see a lot of efficiencies from that. Now in that position and the fact that a lot of the models for RPO and MSP have moved on in terms of the delivery models, as in delivering candidates to the client, have moved on, we can see those models and we can see the margins that are now achievable in that market, and we've got an improved volatility. To actually be able to deliver to our clients. So for all of those reasons, we believe now is the right time to do it. In terms so the final part of that question, which I haven't missed, which is can we catch up? Look, our capability and our track record the moment is very strong in Latin America, in parts of Europe, in Asia, very strong. But clearly, for example, in Financial Services in the middle of London, we don't have a strong And I think if a global bank was to turn rounds with and offer us the full MSP and RPO for all of their seasonal, the best staff across the world, right now, it would be a struggle to point to a good track record that should justify us winning it. So, we there are lots of other sectors outside of those traditional MSP RPO plans to target many of which were already winning. And we think we've got a really good opportunity to grow our track record and then one back one day maybe circle around as these things come up every 3 to 5 years, to pitch, maybe there will be an opportunity for us to step in? And well, hopefully that will work. Just on that point, there an element of this that you were finding that your relationship with some of the larger clients was not as good as it maybe was historically. And this is a way back in and to stay relevant with some of those largest potential clients. Yes. I mean, 1st of all, hopefully, it will work. Thanks for that. But I mean, it's already working. Just to put your mind that rest Andy. Yes, I mean, look, of course, I mean, we've never denied this, I think, in London, where a lot of corporate banks had gone down the MSP RPO route, then clearly, we'd seen our volumes, decrease. I mean, that, that fitted with our strategy of becoming more versus well because frankly, we saw in the GFC that a high exposure to financial services clearly was, quite painful. And I joined the business back in the day when Financial Services represented 40% of the group. That's decreased over the years. The decades I've been here, but, it's now roughly 5% of the group, and I think that's healthy. And we've got even spread. So yes, we have lost ground in some of those markets in high volume recruitment, but at very low margins, we weren't prepared to work at. So, I don't worry about that. What we've seen more importantly to reassure us and give the confidence will be successful is that we've had a growing, I mean, you can imagine in Latin America, in Mexico and Brazil. We've had a lot of requests to do these large scale projects, with our clients. And in Latin America, I challenged a lot of those clients to find an alternative to us to actually be able to deliver So we've actually seen our page outsourcing brand growing success quarter after quarter after quarter. So we've built our own track record in to give us the confidence we will be successful. And so those weren't clients where we lost the business to MSP or RPO operators in the projects or MSP or RPO for the first time. And that's what we intend to choose. Okay. Thank you very much. Pleasure. We now have another question on the phone lines from Anvesh Agarwal of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead, Arthur. Hi, good morning, everyone. I got a couple of questions. First, earlier in the presentation, you talked about rolling out the Salesforce platform in few more geographies. Just from a financial perspective, how should we think about the cost of it in terms of CapEx and OpEx both? And then second is just slightly longer term, like, if we go back 10 years now, technology disintermediation has been discussed as a problem for the industry overall. Do you see the landscape changing post COVID? And what are some of the positive or negative trends that you see for your business within that post in a post call as well? Let me ask Calvin to ask the first half of that question, which I didn't quite catch. It was regarding cost base, I believe. I think the first part of the question, yes, tricky on the line when you were asking it, was about in terms of rolling out these new disciplines across geographies across the world, what are likely to be the investment requirements in terms of operational cost and in terms of CapEx cost. Was that right, Ambrish? Yes. Yes. So I think If we're honest, that's part of the attraction of going into these areas. We have shared service centers set up around the world holidays. And we have systems. We operate in permanent hemp in most geographies where actually that's applicable. And therefore, there isn't really any capital requirement needed in order to rollout these new disciplines. I know, as part of Steve's, presentation on strategy, you'll note that we've had around 300 people from the competition, in the last quarter. Many of these people where people bring the expertise to do these disciplines. We have a track record in permanent recruitment largely And therefore, probably a disproportionate number of people in senior roles have a history in perm. We have some really good contracting businesses, according to the one obviously in Germany, but we also have a very good technology contracting business in Colombia, for example, and therefore, we've added in what is needed to drive these businesses. So, there isn't really going to be a big push of investment, we're not going to go out and buy businesses. We've effectively acquired a 300 person business for nothing, in the last quarter. And we will put people behind them to grow those businesses. It's certainly the case that some of these in contracting take a bit of time and in order for the revenue to build up Obviously, it takes longer than a perm business does, but nonetheless in terms of investing large amounts of cash into these by way of CapEx or acquisition is not the case. Would echo that actually as well because, the footprint of our offices and geographies is exactly where we'd want and that's been the result of a significant focus over the last 10 years. We've just opened an office in the Philippines, which is a 6th country in Southeast Asia, which is was probably the smallest of the high potential markets and where we knew we had to open several countries over the last 5, 6 years, which we've done now. I don't see that going any further to the 7th country for some time. And if you look at our office count over the last 15 or 20 years, it's only come down as we've needed fewer bigger offices. So we already have them, but putting new consultants into those offices is not an issue and not very expensive going on to the second part of your question, which was around technology, I mean, First of all, clearly there's one technology which has been very helpful and that is video interviewing, which we rolled out from Microsoft team some time ago, and you can imagine it to stay connected with each other and our clients and our candidates, we're using all of the time. A lot of interviews, particularly the interviews we did, prescreening candidates and so on is now done by video, which means that our offices conveniently who which have a lot of interview rooms, which was the traditional way, now provides us with extra space so that we can social distance as we return to offices. So that's all been very helpful. And certainly going forward, we'll probably not need as many to view rooms as we had in the past because clients are definitely using that as a technique to do. It's not the whole process. And I think what we've seen is most people return to certainly final interviews being face to face, but, certainly the early of the recruitment process being by video. And that speeds the process up for us helps productivity. What I would say about technology, otherwise, in other areas, from technology. And I hopefully talked about that earlier in the presentation, so I won't go over it again, but there's lots and lots of ways that we can engage with technology to basically make what we do more accurate. We don't want our consultants, blindly cold calling clients, as I did when I was young, when we can leave, use data intelligence, and we have a lot of data to basically guide them to when clients will be active, what they're likely to be recruited guide them to give a client the information around salaries, candidate availability, where they'll be based, maybe now with more flex were working, they could even be based not close to the offices of our clients. So there's lots of advantages we can bring there. And why do I think that's going to be helpful to us in particular in relation to competitors? Well, when you look at our larger competitors, they will have a similar ability to engage with technology. Some will do it more than others. But you have to remember in our industry, it's very, very fragmented. Let me give you an example in the In the UK, there are 27,000 recruitment companies with less than 10 fee earners. Trust me, they will not be able to engage with technology in the same way we can. Can they achieve a national coverage when you've only got 5 consultants? No. Will they be able to access all of the different social media and job boards that we have to access to find candidates that aren't already known to us? No. They won't have a CRM systems in the same sophistication. And as a result, when you look at 27,000 times any up to 10 fee earnings. You can see we've got a lot of competition in those small boutiques. That's the opportunity for us to take market share and gain. So being as an opportunity and not as a threat as you're implying. Well, that's very, very clear. Thank you so much. Sure. We now have a question open. Good morning gentlemen. A question with regard to the recruitment of roughly 300 experienced account managers. And normally around this time of year, you have your significant graduate recruitment. Can you just sort of explain the thinking behind why you've decided in taking your phrase. We've just basically bought a company at close to the very limited cost. The strategic thinking behind at this particular juncture and what this actually tells us about your planning and your view on the future? Sure. I mean, the first thing to observe, obviously, at the moment it's tough. It's a tough market out of there. And, finding and winning and engaging with clients obviously tougher than it was this time last year, hence our numbers are down. What we found is that, our least experienced consultants, those that don't have a track record of winning and developing and growing relationships. Have struggled. And that's why we've roughly speaking lost a thousand people, with less than 12 months experience, many of whom have literally never made a placement. So when you ask those people to work flexibly or even work, totally from home, phoning clients and candidates, they're going to add a limited amount of value. So that's one thing. And that's why this year, we haven't engaged with graduate programs and so forth because working from home, we've got wonderful e learning programs and so on, but a lot of the training and coaching is gained in an office from colleagues, guiding them and coaching you and so on. So we chose not to do that. However, we still want to push ahead in our strategic areas of development and opportunity technology recruitment. It's now 12% of the group. In some markets, it's as high as 35% of the country's GP. In other countries, it's 5%. So we can see a really good opportunity there. It's witnessed in the technology recruitment we do in Germany and contract. Incredibly successful and has been growing now rapidly for some time. So there's an opportunity here for for us to get proven fears and make an evidence for that proven fears that have worked in the competitions, who previous to this, we've not talked to you. But because of the way we've so far, we believe, traveled through the virus, because of the investments we've made over the last few years, our track record and our reputation with those people has proved to the point, they are happy to engage with us and talk to us. So we were able to measure what GP they did last year. It's 1,000,000. You know, I could easily work out a sort of full profit and loss, for 300 people, what their salaries are, what their costs are, what it would cost put them in an office, 40,000,000 of GP, you could estimate what the OP would be. Yeah. We we think it's a smart way of an of acquiring a recruitment company that's tailored to where we need to make investments. And that's what we've done. And, these people unlike a consultancy joins with no recruitment experience as I was when I joined, where it can take anywhere between 3 12 months to start delivering on GP. These guys and girls are hitting the ground running. And I think that's really very helpful. Yes, that's great. If you don't mind me asking, and maybe you don't say because it might be a bit too commercial, but Can you give us sort of geographic and sort of skill set weighting within that recruitment? Just going back to your point on the technology, I could be accurate, but I can't in front of me right now, Edward, which is honestly where I'm at, but I could tell you that we've hired quite a lot in China, a lot in Germany, the UK. This partly reflects where we've got competition because We can't hire loads from the competition in Latin America because frankly they don't exist. So we've done particularly well, I would say in in in Germany, in Southern Europe, Spain, and Italy, UK, China. And actually, we've done reasonably well, where there's not competition, but we've done reasonably well, in some of the Southeast Asia countries as well. It's quite a spread, but I could even give you an accurate figure on that. That wouldn't that wouldn't consider that. That's fine. No, that's correct. I'll add as well. Sorry. A lot of those people, I mean, some have come from the obvious competitors and, but a lot of them have come from boutiques. And I think it's fair to say that if you were to summarize our industries, the 3 that perhaps didn't have the cash reserves that some of the PLC competitors have got that we have as well, that have I would say, and I'd be told to say mishandled how they've gone through, the whole virus situation lockdown and so on. And as a result, frankly, those people have disengaged with the companies they've been working for and have been attempted to work for a bigger player like ourselves. Yes. I can just add a little bit more on to that if you'd like. I mean, we did hire around 60 in Asia around 60 in the UK, nearer to 50 in Germany. And then sort of in the 20s in the U. S. So quite a spread and plenty others within Southern Europe France, Australia And as Steve said, not so many in Latin America around sort of 10, 15 in Latin America. So it was very well spread across many different countries, but slightly higher in the UK and Asia. Okay. And if I've got time for one last question, can you give any sort of bit more granularity with regard to the European footprint on the temporary side, especially talking with regard to France? I'm just getting an idea going back to your point about conservatism from the customer base at this point in a recovery. But what what are you seeing with regard to either volumes versus what you would have expected, or normal and, you know, the temp length and any mix change within that as things are sort of reopening? To be honest, that's pattern we're seeing. I mean, the balance between 10th and perm, actually, in in the middle in, in Europe. Is much more even than it is elsewhere. So, about 55% of Europe is is perm and about 45 is 10%. So it's a big old slug. And, so we're seeing the same sort of reaction to the cycle as we'd expect to, which is temps, temp gets hit at the beginning of the cycle when the virus first happened. A lot of temps, not not in technology and high end accounting, but a lot of the junior attempts, their dispensed with we don't need them. We're in lockdown, etcetera, etcetera. That's the typical reaction of a client. And then as things start to recover and they see the lights coming back on again and people going back to offices and so on, then they actually go, okay. Well, look, let's use the flexible resource, the flexibility that Tim gives us, and we are again. So we're seeing our Tim's numbers recover. And like I said, but with the exception of, technology and high end finance and so on where if somebody needs that expertise and it means them working from home, they won't worry about yes, they'll hire them from home, or they'll retain them if they've already got them, and let them work from home, the beginning of the cycle. So we've seen our technology temp business or contracting business in Germany, for example, do very well during this whole process. And lastly, I could say the same for our contracting business around the world and one of the other markets that grew, in 3 was Columbia because it has a very it has a decent contracting business, focused around IT. So those particular businesses stood up well. We have no further questions registered at this time. Okay. As there are no further questions. Thank you all for joining us this morning. The next date for your calendar is our 4th quarter trading update, which will be on 13th January. Thank you everyone. For today's call. Thank you all again for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.