Johnson Matthey eyes good half year - graduate jobs

Graduates looking for jobs might be interested to learn that fortunes at materials and chemicals company Johnson Matthey are likely to be up at the half-year stage.

There is an increased chance of the company recruiting graduates after it announced that profits for the first half of the financial year would be "significantly ahead" of 2009 during the worst trough of the recession.

However, there was a note of caution sounded by the firm whose products are used in catalytic converters for cars and trucks.

It warned of "substantial uncertainties" lingering over key markets.

The impact of the car scrappage scheme ending, the speed of the US recovery and the continued strength of growth in China created uncertainties which meant it was "harder to predict" prospects for the company.

The group, which has UK bases at Cambridge, Reading and Edinburgh, saw pre-tax profits fall 5% to £254.1 million in the year to March 31.

But it added: "The longer term drivers for the group remain very much in place with ever-tightening emissions standards around the world."