First quarter figures released on Thursday show mixed results for four of the Netherlands’ major companies with KPN and Randstad booking an increase in profit, KLM making a smaller loss and Shell seeing profits halved.

Airline company Air France-KLM saw losses improve to €559m, down from €608m a year ago. Turnover rose 1.8%. The company is currently negotiating with unions in France and the Netherlands in an attempt to bring net debt down from its current €5.3bn to €4.4bn by the end of 2015.

KPN

Telecoms company KPN saw a small rise of 0.2% to €622m in the first quarter. A difficult business market saw turnover fall 3.5% to €1.9bn. Customer numbers rose by 54,000.

KPN said in a statement that the reorganisation begun last year in its business market sector, which includes the loss of hundreds of jobs, is progressing well.

Randstad

Staffing agency Randstad profited from an improvement in the jobs market and booked an increase in turnover of 6% to €4.4bn compared with the first quarter of 2014. Profit rose 8% to €59.5m.

France and Germany remained difficult markets, with income stagnant in France and down 3% in Germany. CEO Robert Jan van de Kraats said in a statement that this is because these countries are struggling with rising wage costs.

Shell

The low oil price saw profit at oil giant Shell more than halve to $3.2bn, down from $7.3bn in the first quarter of 2014. Turnover rose from $109.7bn to $65.7bn.