"2020 was a year like no other,” says CEO Jacques van den Broek. “I am proud of the way Randstad responded with agility and speed to create ‘new ways’ to support our clients and talent in 2020. We generated a strong set of results in the fourth quarter and delivered a solid and competitive performance for the year. Our revenue trend recovered consistently month-by-month from April to December, with activity momentum in January 2021 reaching last year's pre-pandemic levels, driven by our operational agility and diversified portfolio. We saw ongoing demand for essential services and our inhouse concept performed strongly, delivering good growth in the quarter. We generated strong free cash flow in the year and our balance sheet position is healthy and solid. We continue to see good momentum for accelerating investments in growth and digitalization, whilst utilizing the flexibility of our cost base. At the same time, visibility remains limited with ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our digital transformation strategy helped us to pivot quickly to a virtual working environment and continue to support our clients with digital tools and safety protocols through our #newways program. By harnessing the power of data, we were able to identify and fill relevant existing and new roles, such as COVID-19 medical screeners and staff working in test and trace. We remained focused on talent, seamlessly moving people from declining sectors to those in high-demand through reskilling and redeployment. This focus will continue to be critical in narrowing the skill gaps and preventing unnecessary redundancies in an ever changing labor market. We emerge from 2020 as a more agile, digital, diversified, and globally empowered organization and I want to thank all of our employees, as well as our clients, talent and shareholders, for their continued support and trust."
View our CEO's video on this quarter's results.