Recruitment and training company SHL has hired two new directors to head up the company's strategy to survive the economic downturn.

Laurence Karsh is in charge of the North American region and Paul Van Raay is at the helm of European operations.

The company, which also supplies psychometric tests, has admitted it has cut jobs at its recruitment business, Park Human Resources.

The performance of the company’s Meridian region – encompassing the UK, Ireland and South Africa – has been badly affected by Park’s poor results.

A spokesman said that SHL made around nine advertising personnel redundant at Park, though the company has increased its sales force elsewhere in the Meridian region.

Speaking at the company’s AGM, chairman Neville Bain said the company’s overall performance would be towards the bottom end of analysts’ predictions, with pre-tax profits expected to total around £8m.

He said: "In common with many companies in our sector, trading in the last three months of 2001 was slow.

"As a consequence, trading in the first half of our current financial year will be down on the performance in the second half of our last financial year."

Bain said it was too early to judge whether the worst of the downturn was over but said the company was well placed to take advantage of any improvement.