Upwork revenue up, and more news of the job board industry

What a surprise – Upwork revenue up, Fiverr revenue up, and Indeed and Glassdoor revenue down. Notice anything there, such as freelancer sites seem to be doing better than their traditional job counterparts? Of course there are other ups and downs in this industry roundup, so let’s take a closer look:

• New jobs scraper launches: Kadoa Jobs, an AI-automated job posting scraper, launched recently. The product claims an 99% success rate in accurately scraping and generating job data feeds from company career sites. Kadoa also says that its data extraction technology is designed to be self-healing. It adapts to changes in website code, ensuring continuous and seamless data scraping without any manual intervention. Congrats!
• Remote decides to roll out a job board: Remote, the HR tech company that allows companies to hire, manage and pay remote workers, is launching a remote job marketplace called Remote Talent. The job board is integrated with its global HR platform, meaning that companies can onboard, manage and pay their new hires through Remote. But the job board doesn’t have its own revenue goals, according to Remote’s CEO. Not all job offers on Remote Talent have to be remote, but the company hopes to add value by removing the usual ambiguities of traditional job boards when it comes to flexible work and distributed teams. Better late than never!
• EarnBetter raises funds: CA-based recruitment technology company EarnBetter has successfully raised $4.5 million in a seed funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz and Abstract Ventures. It has also launched its free AI job search assistant. EarnBetter’s platform uses generative AI to quickly reformat and rewrite resumes, draft cover letters and scan millions of jobs to offer personalized matches to job seekers. The new funds will be used to continue building out AI products to support job seekers and recruit more staff. AI!
• Fiverr revenue rises: Fiverr reported revenue growth of 12.1% for the third quarter of 2023 ended 30 September 2023. Revenue totalled $92.5 million compared to $82.5 million the year prior. Adjusted EBITDA in the third quarter of 2023 was $16.5 million, compared to $6.6 million in the third quarter of 2022. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 17.9% in the third quarter of 2023, compared to 7.9% in the third quarter of 2022. Interesting.
• X adds job postings: X, formerly known as Twitter, announced that its job search function is available to all users after previously launching in beta last August. The feature, known as X Hiring, launched as a feature available only to verified organizations on X. At the time, owner Elon Musk positioned the platform as a direct competitor to Microsoft subsidiary LinkedIn. The company also said that a mobile-friendly version of X Hiring is forthcoming for iOS and Android operating systems but did not provide a timeline. Hmm.
• Indeed and Glassdoor revenue declines: Revenue fell at Indeed and Glassdoor amid uncertain economic conditions, and the new pricing model at Indeed helped push down paid job ads, according to their owner, Recruit Holdings Co. Ltd. Indeed’s paid job ads fell 50% year over year. US dollar-based revenue in HR Technology fell 18.2% year over year to $1.77 billion in the company’s second quarter ended Sept. 30. The decrease was 19.1% on a constant currency basis. Total job openings on Indeed in the US were down approximately 16% year over year, while paid jobs fell 50%, the company reported. The good news? Staffing revenue went up. Win some, lose some, I guess.
• HeadHunter revenue is up: HeadHunter, the Moscow-based job board, reported revenue of RUB 8.36 billion (USD 93.8 million) for the third quarter ended 30 September 2023, an increase of 76.4% compared to the previous year. The revenue increase was primarily due to continuing demand for candidates driving up the number of paying customers and the average consumption, as well as its monetisation improvements and low base effect. In the Key Accounts customer segment, revenue increased by 72.5%, driven mostly by ARPC (average revenue per customer) growth, as well as an increase in the number of paying customers. Impressive.
• ZipRecruiter revenue down: ZipRecruiter reported a hiring slowdown across most sectors as economic uncertainty made employers reluctant to fill some jobs. Third-quarter revenue at the jobs website operator fell 31.4% to $155.6 million. The number of quarterly paid employers fell, though revenue per paid employer rose. ZipRecruiter had 89,668 quarterly paid employers in the quarter, down 34% year over year. Revenue per paid employer rose 4% to $1,736. Hmm.
• Reed dips toe into AI waters: U.K.-based Reed has launched an AI-powered interview question generator tool to help recruiters select which questions to ask. The free tool uses an algorithm based on bespoke criteria to identify questions for any role in any sector for any level to meet the skills requirement of an organization and that are tailored to the requirements of the role and the organization. The tool highlights the three most sought-after soft skills and also saves time for recruiters having to research and decide upon the best questions themselves. Sounds promising!
• Upwork revenue up: Upwork reported third-quarter revenue rose 10.8% year over year, beating guidance. Revenue is now set to rise to between $680 million and $685 million — an increase of 10% at the midpoint. The company previously forecast full-year revenue of between $665 million and $675 million, an increase of 8% at the midpoint. For the fourth quarter, Upwork forecast revenue of between $175 million and $180 million, also an increase of 10% at the midpoint. Impressive.
• InfoEdge revenue up, too: Info Edge India, the Indian job board, reported unaudited consolidated results today with revenue from operations for the second-quarter ended 30 September 2023 of INR 6.26 billion (USD 75.1 million), up 3.6% compared to the same period last year. Recruitment Solutions saw an uptick in revenue of 7.4% over the previous year. Recruitment solutions comprises primarily of Naukri.com, other recruitment related portals and ancillary services related to recruitment. Congrats!
• NewWork sees a slowdown: Revenue at Germany-based New Work SE, the parent company of job network Xing and employer rating portal Kununu, fell by 3.8% year on year (y-o-y) to €75.7 million ($80.8 million U.S.) in the three months to September 2023. EBITDA held up better, falling by just 0.1% y-o-y to €26.7 million ($28.6 million) in Q3 2023. As a result, EBITDA margin rose from 34% in Q3 2022 to 35% in Q3 2023. Xing reached 22 million members at the end of Q3 2023, up 700,000 y-o-y. Meanwhile, employer review site Kununu grew to 9.8 million members and 5.4 million reviews. Kinda mixed bag.
• Beamery chops work force:  London-based hrtech startup Beamery is to shed 25 percent of its workforce. According to LinkedIn, 421 individuals list Beamery as their workplace, meaning 105 talents will soon be available for hire. In January of this year, Beamery let 12 percent of its staff go. Just one month prior, the company had announced a $50 million Series D funding round at a valuation north of $1 billion. Hmm.
• Jobindex revenue slides: Danish job board Jobindex reported lower third-quarter revenue of DKK 89.3 million (€11.9 million), a fall of 10.5% compared with the same quarter in the previous year.  Their advertising products reached a turnover of DKK 70 million (€9.4 million) against DKK 81 million (€10.8 million) in the same period last year. On July 2023 Jobindex announced that it completed the delisting of its shares from the Nasdaq First North Growth Market Denmark. The last trading day for the company was 30 June after 16 years.  Hmm.

I’m sure you noticed the AI mentions as well – it seems like they increase with each roundup. I will be curious to see when they start having a direct effect on the industry’s bottom line. In the meantime, see you soon!

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