Job market for recruiters shows UK weakness, US strength

[LONDON / NEW YORK] As recruitment firms shed large parts of their workforce across the globe, growing demand for recruiters in the US points to a stronger-than-expected job market. 

Publicly-listed recruitment firms in both the UK and the US recently announced job cuts during their latest results. Still, the sector is proving more resilient in the US.

A prolonged slowdown in the UK labour market prompted Robert Walters to ramp up cost measures after posting a loss in 2025, having already cut headcount by 15 per cent. Hays reduced its global consultant workforce by 14 per cent since March last year, while Pagegroup cut staff by about 7.5 per cent in 2025.

In the US, Robert Half cut headcount at its consulting arm Protiviti, executives announced on the latest earnings call. “These were measured actions, not a broad-based restructuring,” the company said. 

US-based recruitment firm ManpowerGroup also announced a similar move affecting workers in the US and Europe. The US$16 million restructuring charges in the first quarter were primarily related to severance, the company said. 

Overall, recruiters are in much higher demand in the US. Employment website Indeed’s data on job postings for recruiters showed that in the UK, recruiter job postings have been steadily shrinking for at least a year. In the US, job postings have been increasing since December.

Last year’s increase in UK national insurance taxes has “made hiring more expensive”, said An Nguyen, an economist at job site Indeed. The UK recorded the steepest decline in hiring intentions among the 42 countries surveyed by ManpowerGroup.

The outbreak of the Iran war is making a tough situation even more difficult for British recruiters. Robert Walters and Pagegroup both warned of an increasingly uncertain outlook as consumer and business confidence continue to weaken, threatening to undo the recent pick-up in hiring seen in some geographies.

This means fewer jobs to advertise and find the right candidate for, and therefore dwindling demand for recruiters. 

SEE ALSO

Stronger, broader hiring could ease Fed job market worries

More workers in Singapore opt for jobs for which they are overqualified: MOM, NTUC studies

In the US, despite plans for massive job cuts at giant corporations, and a “low-hire-low-fire” labour market, job listings for recruiters are up. Companies are looking for workers who are well-versed in artificial intelligence, skills that are “difficult to identify” and therefore require headhunting acumen, Nguyen said. 

Tech jobs listing site TrueUp.io shows that openings for recruiter roles have been generally climbing after plunging in 2022. Headlines of companies citing AI to slash thousands of workers could be “a smokescreen,” said Aline Lerner, founder and CEO of interviewing.io, an anonymous mock interview and recruiting platform. Engineering and tech recruiting jobs “are in lockstep”.

“It’s about pumping their stock price properly,” Lerner said. “So some of them could just be going back to hiring again.” 

Even as Block Inc co-founder and Chairman Jack Dorsey announced plans to terminate 40 per cent of the company’s workforce, he told investors on the February earnings call that the company still intends to bring on a small number of senior AI engineers.

Beyond tech, the healthcare sector’s continued need for workers has buoyed jobs for recruiters, Nguyen said. The latest US jobs data showed the rate of openings in healthcare and social assistance rising 5.4 per cent in March, outpacing the 4.3 per cent increase in total private job openings. BLOOMBERG