Ipsos freezes recruitment in flagging regions

FRANCE-- Ipsos is set to freeze recruitment in regions were growth is stalling after reporting a drop in revenue during the first quarter of 2009.

The firm said it plans to adjust its headcount “in line with the volume of business” around the world.

Chief financial officer Laurence Stoclet told Research the firm would “be taking advantage of staff attrition and stopping recruitment” in countries showing a decline in business, but stressed that redundancies were not on the cards.

“Laying people off is not the plan,” she said. “We will just not renew positions [when staff leave].”

The move comes after Ipsos reported a 4.6% drop in revenue for the first quarter of 2009 to €207.3m and a negative organic growth rate of 5.1%.

North America and Europe are in line to be affected by the hiring freeze after seeing a 6% and 8% drop in revenues respectively. Consolidated revenue in Europe was down year-on-year from €111.9m to €100.3m from and from €64.9m to €60.8m in North America.

Revenue was up 6% to €21.9m in Latin America and 8.5% to €21.6m in Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

By operating sector, opinion and social research activities were hit hardest with a 9% drop in revenue to €31.6m while advertising and marketing research revenues each saw an 8% drop, to €44.8m and €90.8m respectively.

Ipsos attributed the declines to the fact that fewer ad campaigns were being tested, while clients were switching to online data collection and delaying decisions on their marketing programmes.

Better news came from the media research arm which reported a 15.5% increase in revenue to €18.5m while customer relationship management revenue was up 12.5% to €21.6m.

Ipsos said it had “held up well in an exceptionally difficult market” but was “convinced” it could outperform the market throughout the rest of 2009.

The firm said it had never been involved in “so many or such high value RFPs as today” and predicted that business would recover, gradually, in each quarter.

Author: James Verrinder

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