Recruiter Robert Walters raises full-year profit forecast again

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Oct (Shenzhen: 000069.SZ - news) 10 (Reuters) - British recruiter Robert Walters (LSE: RWA.L - news) raised its full-year profit forecast for a second time, after it reported a 22 percent jump in quarterly net fee income.

The company, which places people in finance, engineering, legal and marketing jobs, said annual pretax profit would be ahead of market expectations, citing strong growth for temporary and permanent jobs.

Robert Walters' net fee income grew to 90.7 million pounds ($119.5 million) in the three months to Sept. 30 from 74.4 million a year earlier.

Hiring activity in Britain was particularly strong in the legal profession and the technology sector, it said in a statement on Tuesday.

The company raised its profit forecast in July, saying banks continued to hire "significant numbers" of people in London, underpinning its confidence that jobs in the sector would not move to the continent anytime soon despite concerns over Britain's vote to leave the European Union.

Where other recruiters in the UK have seen a slowdown in the aftermath of Brexit, Robert Walters' results have been broadly stronger, propped up by consistent growth in its domestic outsourcing services business.

Robert Walters said its outsourcing business saw growing demand from both existing and new clients.

Larger UK recruiters PageGroup (Frankfurt: 658848 - news) and Hays are scheduled to issue trading updates this week. ($1 = 0.7592 pounds) (Reporting by Esha Vaish in Bengaluru; editing by Jason Neely and Louise Heavens)