A slowdown in hiring among banks hit shares in UK recruitment company Michael Page . By lunchtime its shares were down 7% to 284.75p.
In a trading update for its first quarter Page - which specialises in white collar recruitment spanning finance and accounting to retail and the legal profession - said UK growth more than halved due to weak trading in the banking sector.
Outside the troubled banking sector Page's results were strong, generally beating analysts' expectations. But new evidence of credit-crunch fallout unsettled analysts.
Landsbanki analyst Ian Jermin said this morning: "The main point to come out of the (Michael Page) first quarter update was the rapid slowdown in growth in the UK which had already been presaged by a Q4 2007 drop in NFI (net fee income) growth from about 21% to 15.6% and now, in this first quarter of 2008, NFI growth has slowed down further to just 6.8%.
"The reason for this is the weakness in the banking sector and this weakness spilling over into sectors that service these clients. There was also an unquantified effect of the Easter break, although this did not seem to adversely impact results for the second quarter last year."
British Energy shares were 3% higher at 732.5p by lunchtime, lifted by weekend reports that European utilities EDF and RWE had approached British gas owner Centrica about a possible joint bid for the nuclear power operator.
The FTSE 100 share index was 36.2 points higher at 5983 by lunchtime, up 0.6%, lifted by British Energy, miners and takeover target Friends Provident.
