Recruit’s revenues, Ant-Man, and ‘open air’: news of the job board industry

Since last month’s roundup, we’ve started seeing some financial results (including a rundown on Recruit’s revenues, below) and continued strength in labor demand. Some of us keep asking ‘What recession?’. It’ll probably come around at some point – but what’s the hurry? We also saw evidence of Google testing the waters on paid job posting promotion, and a bumbling rollout of CPA by Indeed. Nevertheless – there is a lot more news to come. Let’s get to it!

• Recruit’s revenues up: Recruit’s revenues rose 6.5% in constant currency in its fiscal third quarter ended Dec. 31 with growth across business lines. The company’s HR Technology segment — which includes Indeed and Glassdoor — saw revenue rise 24.2% year over year in the third quarter to 203.0 billion yen. However, on a US dollar basis, revenue fell 0.1% to $1.98 billion. Recruit revised its guidance for full-year revenue growth upward to 19.3%. Not bad.
• WantedLab sales up: South Korea-based job-site operator WantedLab finished the last year with a 58.7% growth in sales and 47.4% increase in operating profit. The company provides job-matching and rectech services for both employees and gig workers through recruitment verticals Wanted.co.kr and KreditJob.com, in addition to multiple other offerings. With a 17.9% margin, annual operating profit grew to KRW9.0 billion from KRW6.1 billion. Impressive.
• ZipRecruiter goes Hollywood: ZipRecruiter has partnered with Marvel Studios and its forthcoming release, “Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania,” for a co-branded campaign that promotes the employment platform’s 1-Click Apply feature and matching technology. Key to the effort is a commercial demonstrating how a fictitious engineer used ZipRecruiter to land her dream job working alongside Ant-Man. In the meantime, the company’s fourth-quarter revenue fell 4.4% to $210.5 million. Still, fourth-quarter revenue was above analysts’ estimate, and ZipRecruiter reported revenue per paid employer rose 30% year over year in the fourth quarter to $1,944. Hmm.
• Huntly.ai launches:  A new recruitment marketplace dubbed Huntly.ai has just launched in Poland and Romania. The platform is aimed at IT recruiters and wants to assist leading product tech companies from Western Europe and the United States. Huntly works like this: each recruiter can recommend a candidate by adding their CV to a certain position in the marketplace. The candidate is then verified by the employer, and if they pass the interview successfully, they are hired, and the recruiter receives a referral bonus. It amounts to half of the candidate’s monthly salary. Intriguing.
• Aspen Tech Labs launches new service: Recruitment technology platform Aspen Tech Labs has launched a Wage Benchmarking Tool as part of its Job Market Pulse product. Rather than manually tracking or researching salary data for exact roles in specific areas, users can see live salary data instantly from thousands of employers globally. The tool allows employers and researchers to compare real-time salary data extracted from more than nine million active job listings. Intriguing.
• UpWork’s revenue rises: Fourth-quarter revenue rose 18% year over year at Upwork to $161.4 million, but the talent platform noted caution among clients during the quarter. Gross services volume rose 5% year over year to $1.03 billion; it rose 14% year over year in the previous quarter. Upwork forecast first-quarter revenue of between $157 million and $160 million, an increase of 12% year over year at the midpoint. Kinda slowing…but not.
• CareerIndex revenue slows: Revenue growth at Japan-based marketplace operator CareerIndex slowed during Q3 FY2023 (the three months to December 2022), as cost-per-applicant soared. In Q3 FY2023, CareerIndex saw its revenue increase to JPY794 million ($5.9 million U.S.) from JPY729 million in the year-earlier period. However, operating income fell sharply, to JPY17 million ($127,000) from JPY230 million in the year-earlier period. Interesting.
• JobIndex revenue drops: Danish job board Jobindex reported revenue for the fourth quarter of DKK 95.4 million (€12.8 million), down 17.9% compared with the same quarter in the previous year. Recruitment products turnover was DKK 5.6 million (€0.7 million) against DKK 6.3 million (€0.8 million) in the fourth quarter of 2021. For the full year 2022, the group posted revenue of DKK 435.4 million (€58.49 million), up 1.7% over the previous year. Hmm.
• Seek revenue grows a bit: Seek has continued to grow revenue in H1 FY2023, despite the volume of job ads moderating. Revenue rose 21% year-on-year (y-o-y) to A$627 million ($432 million U.S.) in H1 FY2023, while net profit increased 9% to A$135 million ($93 million U.S.). EBITDA grew 13% to A$283 million ($195 million U.S.). Seek CEO and MD Ian Narev attributed its strong performance in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ), where interest rates are rising rapidly and inflation has hit a three-decade high, to the dynamic pricing structure it implemented two years ago. Intriguing.
• Freelance.com revenue up: French talent platform Freelance.com reported its fourth quarter and full year 2022 results. The group reported consolidated revenue of €218.5 million in Q4 2022 versus €178.3 million in Q4 2021, for an increase of 23%. For the FY 2022 period, in France, the group delivered consolidated revenue of €509.7 million in 2022, up 25% year on year, representing 64% of the group’s total consolidated revenue. The company has a market cap of €369.66 million. Impressive.
• Jobgether raises funds: Brussels-based Jobgether has raised €1.4 million in a seed funding round. The capital was provided via finance&invest.brussels and 4Ventures, as well a number of undisclosed angel investors. Jobgether is using geo-targeting to maximise the potential of finding jobs that are genuinely available to job seekers based on their location.  The startup then runs these candidates through a gamut of 27 AI-powered checks and balances to identify and score the most flexible employers among those offering positions, creating what the company refers to as a “flex score”. Interesting.
• An ‘open air’ recruitment marketplace?: An unusual, niche digital recruitment marketplace has launched by a camping website, Campsited.  It enables employers to provide employees with the opportunity to work and live in natural settings across several countries from one to 12 weeks at a time. Properties are vetted to check Wi-Fi availability and that they provide appropriate working and living facilities and Campsited offers e-sim mobile data packages for employees to use so data roaming costs are minimized. Something new under the sun!

Well. I think this roundup really ran the gamut of what’s going on in our industry – innovation, funding, and of course, Recruit’s revenues! Maybe the next post will be written from a natural setting that isn’t in the icy Midwest! Till next time…

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