PageGroup says UK hiring slowed ahead of Brexit vote

* Q2 UK profit down 2.3 pct

* CEO points to continued uncertainty in UK after Brexit

* Says China and Brazil remain challenging

* Q2 group profit up 3.7 pct, up slightly on Q1 (Adds details, background, context)

July 12 (Reuters) - British recruiter PageGroup Plc saw a slowdown in the run-up to the country's June 23 referendum on leaving the European Union, its quarterly results showed on Tuesday.

The company, which mainly finds candidates to fill permanent positions, said its second-quarter UK gross profit in constant currency fell by 2.3 percent to 38.3 million pounds ($50 million) in the three months June 30.

Recruiters such as PageGroup, Hays Plc (LSE: HAS.L - news) , Robert Walters Plc and SThree Plc (LSE: STHR.L - news) are often seen as a gauge of the economy because people tend to switch jobs more frequently when confidence levels rise.

Since the referendum vote, SThree has said that the UK market saw some uncertainty impacting client hiring in the run up to the vote. Robert Walters (LSE: RWA.L - news) has also said that the UK market has seen some Brexit uncertainty.

PageGroup said on Tuesday its UK temporary placement businesses had shown greater resilience than permanent over the three month period. Businesses tend to hire temporary staff rather than take on more permanent employees in times of uncertainty.

Demand for financial services in the UK fell 7 percent, while legal was its best performing domestic sector, with growth of 23 percent over the period, PageGroup said.

"It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) is too early to say how the result of the EU referendum will impact our results going forward, but the environment leading up to the vote caused a slightly weaker result in June," Chief Executive Steve Ingham said in a statement.

Helped by a strong performance in continental Europe and Latin America, with the exception of Brazil, the company's gross profit grew 3.7 percent to 156.9 million pounds in constant currency terms.

This was slightly ahead of 3.6 percent growth seen in the first quarter, although challenging market conditions in the UK, greater China and Brazil had persisted, PageGroup said. ($1 = 0.7644 pounds) (Reporting by Esha Vaish in Bengaluru; editing by Jason Neely and Louise Heavens)