British recruiter PageGroup reported a fall in its third-quarter gross profit on Monday, hurt by weak hiring in its European markets, especially Germany and France.

"Whilst most markets were sequentially stable, we experienced softer activity and trading in a number of European countries including France and Germany," CEO Nicholas Kirk said in a statement.

In Germany, which is PageGroup's largest market, gross profit fell 19% while France, its second-largest market also dropped 16%.

The firm, however, said it expects its annual operating profit to be 58 million pounds ($75.8 million), compared with analysts' average estimate of 58.1 million pounds, as per LSEG IBES data.

It had logged 118.8 million pounds in operating profit last year.

Recruiters have been battling sluggish hiring market conditions for the past year, as high interest rates and lower unemployment levels drag confidence among employees and employers both.

Peer Hays on Friday warned that the hiring conditions could remain challenging in the near-term.

PageGroup, which runs PageExecutive and MichaelPage among other businesses, said gross profit for the three-month period ended Sept. 30 fell 15.1% on a constant currency basis to 201.4 million pounds year-on-year.

($1 = 0.7652 pounds)

(Reporting by Prerna Bedi in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)