Things are looking up: it’s revenue time!

Although much of the job board industry is privately held, there are enough publicly-owned companies to provide us with a sense of how thing are going – in other words, it’s revenue time. The answer? Well, pretty good, actually – and much better than a year ago. Even Monster managed to not go down – its revenue is ‘stabilized’. I just love the many ways in which corporations manage to say ‘things don’t suck as much’! Let’s take a closer look:

• Randstad says Monster is stable: Randstad NV reported stable revenue from its recruitment marketplace Monster.com during the second quarter, while the group’s total revenue rose 3% from pre-pandemic numbers in 2019. Randstad didn’t present revenue breakdown of Monster Worldwide. However, it says the job site’s revenue stayed stable year-on-year in Q2, although there was a 21% decline quarter-on-quarter. Revenue from Monster rose to €294 million ($348 million U.S.) in Q2 from €219 million ($259 million U.S.) the same period last year, bringing the half-year revenue up to €551 million compared to €488 million a year earlier. So, it could have been worse – much worse.
• Upwork’s revenue is…up: Upwork reported revenue rose 41.9% in the second quarter while gross services volume, or GSV, on the platform rose 50% year over year to $875.8 million. The company forecast third-quarter revenue of between $125 million and $127 million, representing a year-over-year increase of between 29.2% and 31.3%. The company had a market cap of $7.26 billion. It’s interesting how many job boards and marketplaces have market caps over $1 billion these days.
• New Work revenue is also up: New Work – the parent company of Germany’s social network XING – said that  pro forma revenues inched up 2% and came in at €139 million ($165 million U.S.) for the first half of 2021. Pro forma EBITDA for the period jumped 33% to €52.3 million while pro forma net profit rose by 51% to €25.4 million with New Work attributing these significant increases to the group postponing a number of planned investments. The company’s largest segment, b-to-b e-recruiting, saw revenues increase 3% to €78.7 million. XING has successfully competed against LinkedIn in the German market. The company also operates a GlassDoor competitor, Kununu.
• Fiverr revenue rises dramatically: Fiverr revenue rose 59.7% year over year in the second quarter of 2021. The number of active buyers on Fiverr’s platform rose 43% year over year to 4.0 million in the second quarter. Spend per buyer rose to $226, up 23% from $184 in the second quarter of last year. The company also revised its forecast for full-year 2021 growth to between 48% and 52%., up from between 48% and 52%. I believe when you are forecasting those kind of numbers, you are having a pretty good year.
• DHI revenue is up a little: DHI Group reported second-quarter revenue rose 4.1% with growth in its ClearanceJobs segment. Revenue in company’s Dice segment was flat. “The second quarter represented a revenue inflection point for DHI Group as we have turned the corner and are now on an upward revenue growth trajectory,” DHI President and CEO Art Zeile said. Zell noted that bookings were up 23% year over year. Inflection point, eh? Hmm.

So there you have it – revenue time, good and bad. Not a comprehensive look by any means – no recent news from Recruit, Seek, or Stepstone, for example – but still, a good indicator of what’s happening in the industry. You can see slow growth in both old-style companies such as DHI and Randstad, as well as more explosive growth from newer companies such as Fiverr and Upwork. The impact of the pandemic – making itself felt via employers’ higher reliance on remote work – still looms large. But overall, the industry is doing well as workers move back into working – and employers continue to be hungry for new talent. It’s revenue time, indeed!

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