HireQuest, Inc.

Good afternoon, and welcome to the HireQuest, Inc. second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode, and we will open the floor for your questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Jen Belladeau from INS Investor Relations. Jen, the floor is yours.

Thank you. I'd like to welcome everybody to the call today. Hosting the call are HiReQuest CEO Rick Hermanns and CFO David Hartley. I'll now take a moment to read the Safe Harbor Statement. This conference call contains forward-looking statements as defined within Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. These forward-looking statements in terms such as anticipate, expect, intend, may, will, should, or other comparable terms involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the future. Those statements include statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of HireQuest and members of its management, as well as the assumptions on which such statements are based. Prospective investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, including those described in HireQuest's periodic reports filed with the SEC and that actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements. Except as required by federal securities law, HireQuest undertakes no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect changed conditions. Now I'd like to turn the call over to the CEO of HireQuest, Rick Hermanns. Please go ahead, Rick.

Good afternoon and thank you for joining our call today. In the second quarter, we continued to see improving demand for temporary staffing services as the market stabilizes and employers begin to prioritize hiring again. Leading up to Q2, we saw what I described as tentative green shoots in demand over the last few quarters, but with no real traction to speak of until the second half of the first quarter of this year when we started to see consistent demand in favorable weekly year-over-year comparisons across the business. As you can see in our results, these comps were even more favorable in Q2, as we drove year-over-year revenue growth for the first time since the third quarter of 2024. And frankly, the latter part of the second quarter was better than the start. David will take a deeper dive into the financials, but moving down the P&L at a high level, the increased revenue in the quarter combined with disciplined expense management generated significantly improved gap profitability and earnings for our shareholders. We operate in an industry where a rising tide tends to lift all ships, with macro factors like interest rates and the political landscape weighing heavily upon the employer's decisions to hire, downsize, or even freeze their efforts altogether. The latter is what we are seeing for the better part of the last two years. So far this year, there have been three primary factors enabling our growth. First, we are seeing the benefits from the immigration policies enacted at the beginning of 2025. Second, our franchisees have taken advantage of the uptick in the manufacturing labor market, especially our Snelling franchisees, who grew their top line by almost 15%. And third, as I mentioned on last quarter's call, we are seeing a return on the investments we've made in our national accounts program. So while the industry is up as a whole, We continue to stand out from the pack thanks to our differentiated franchise staffing model, which allows us to be nimble and flexible regardless of the market trends. I'd like to highlight that we remain profitable throughout the duration of this market downturn. In fact, we've reported gap profitability in each quarter since the third quarter of 24 when we recognized a one-time non-cash impairment charge of $6.4 million related to our acquisition of MRI Network. which flowed down to our bottom line. On a non-GAAP basis, we have never reported a loss. With that background, you can see how exciting a stabilizing market is for our business after two plus years of uncertainty. We're well positioned with a proven model, increasing demand and a strong balance sheet and no debt. There's work still to be done and the market has a long way to go before it returns to previous levels. With that being said, We're encouraged by what we're seeing in both our business and in the broader staffing market. And with our visibility today, we believe that we're in a stronger place to deliver positive results through the balance of 2026. With that, I'll turn over the call now to David to provide a closer look at our second quarter financial results.