Randstad Nv Unsp/Adr

Hello, welcome to the Randstad Q3 2025 results conference call and audio webcast. For the first part of the call, participants will be in listen-only mode. And afterwards, there will be a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press key pound five on your telephone keypad. Please note, that you're limited to one question per round and a follow-up question, if time allows that. I will now hand over the word to Sander van het Noordende, CEO, Mr. van het Noordende.

Please go ahead. Thank you very much, Elba, for that kind introduction. And good morning, everybody. I'm here with George and our investor relations team to share our Q3 results. Let me first say it's been a special quarter as we celebrated our 65 year anniversary. And of course, this milestone is a celebration of our enduring commitment to shaping the world of work and to be a true partner for talent, providing clients with the talent they need to succeed and finding talented jobs and careers they are looking for. So this quarter we've been very focused on executing our partner for talent strategy and I'm pleased to report that our delivery excellence and our digital first progress combined with commercial and operational discipline has led to a good set of results. The market environment in Q3 was in many ways similar to what we saw in Q2. We remain in the stacked and job market. We see more resilience in temp while as expected, the professional and per markets remain challenging. From a geographical perspective, we see diverging trends with ongoing recovery in North America and Southern Europe and sustained momentum in APEC. Condition in Northern Europe remain challenging and we expect this environment to persist for the remainder of the year. Against this backdrop, we delivered solid results. We achieved revenues of 5.8 billion euros, an EBITDA of 191 million euros and a margin of 3.3%. Looking forward, we continue to see stabilization, most notably in North America and Southern Europe, with temp more resilient than perm. On the other hand, major Northwestern European countries face ongoing uncertainty in the wake of various domestic challenges. However, I'm proud of the discipline that we have shown in our execution in Q3 with good progress on our operational and enterprise specializations. And from a commercial point of view, we've grown activity and runs at operational. We have had some good client wins in enterprise and digital and professional job flow is back at pre-summer levels. And that said, we've been very focused on executing our strategy and I want to share some meaningful progress that shows things are coming together at scale because that's what we need at Randstad. The main milestone this quarter is clearly Ransat Digital in the US. We went live with our Torque Digital Marketplace with the talent community of now over 1 million IT specialists. We have transformed our business from the classic linear and recruiter dependent model into one that's community centric, high velocity and AI powered. And this does not only result in a better experience for clients and talent, but also in enhanced productivity. And with this move, we immediately add another 1.3 billion euros in annualized revenues to our digital marketplaces. A second area where we are making great progress through our digital marketplaces is our healthcare growth segment. In the Netherlands, Zorgwerk successfully navigated the transition from freelance to temp, driving strong double-digit growth. We've expanded our Appel Medical app in France with self-scheduling, empowering talent even more. And as mentioned last quarter, we've gone live for healthcare in Belgium, and in the first months, talent take-up was enormous, with 50% of shifts filled within one hour, of which 30% filled within 10 minutes. And finally, we're making strides in Australia with now over 40,000 self-scheduled shifts. And this growth segment is now generated over 800 million annual revenues through digital marketplaces. Lastly, I'm pleased with your transformation of our Ransom operational business in the US. And as I said before, it's not just the launch of the digital marketplace, it's the business model. Leveraging the power of digital first in combination with talent and delivery centers gives a better experience for talent in terms of flexibility and speed and for clients in terms of fulfillment and quality of talent. Also, it allows us to spend more time with clients because of a higher productivity in delivery. Finally, we run our business at a higher clock speed. As an example, we now have our supply-demand balance by zip code and by roll at our fingertips, allowing us to take immediate action where needed. And the good thing is that all of this is already contributing to growth and profitability. So these transformations are taking the way we run our business to a next level with a higher velocity, more data and more position. We're setting up a new base camp, if you will. And the great thing is it's all powered by next generation AI embedded in our digital marketplaces. Combined, our digital marketplaces are now generating approximately 4 billion in annualized revenue, which is 15% of our total business. And that's massive. To conclude, we're executing well in fragile markets. We're operating our business with rigor and discipline, and at the same time delivering on our pipeline for talent strategy with, of course, the best team in the industry. George, over to you.

Thank you, Sander, and good morning, everyone. Let me start by bringing where we left it last time. So overall, the stabilization we highlighted the whole year, and in Q2 in particular, continued into Q3. We increased our workforce, just to put into perspective, by over 10,000 employees in Q3 sequentially, compared to last year's similar increase of 4,000 employees, two and a half times. Despite an adverse foreign exchange impact, we'll talk more about that later, we generated more revenue sequentially as well. At the same time, while clients on caution are favoring flexibility, the actual hiring confidence remain extremely low and our permanent placement placements felt that impact. Overall, as the decline rates is like Sander mentioned, combined with our focus on operational efficiency, combined again with a linear cost structure, allow us to protect profitability and further the leverage. But let's break this down by regions first and starting on page eight with North America. In North America, we continue to see good strategic and financial progress this quarter, with growth and profitability improving across all specializations. In the US, our operational business grew 1% and continues to perform ahead of the market, as we have now implemented our new way of working. Sander alluded to it, but let me remind you, this is not only the marketplace, it's the central delivery for our client and talents. It's optimizing roles and responsibilities around specialization, and it's the immediate talent availability and our accommodation footprint. Through digital first and more harmonized ways of working, we continue to generate quarter after quarter productivity gains and are able to remove structural costs, operating now already a significantly leaner cost structure. The professional solutions and permanent hiring showed signs of stabilization at a low level, declining still 11% and 18%, as I mentioned before, in permanent. Digital grew 2%, and we celebrated the rollout as we heard from the center of the marketplace. Enterprise was, for the whole region, 2% broadly stable sequentially. In Canada, we also saw good underlying improvement and return to growth in the quarter. The EBITDA margin for North America came in at 4.6%, up 100 basis points year over year, a solid step towards a structurally higher operating leverage already under the new model.

And now let's move on to Northern Europe on slide nine.

Especially here, we continue to navigate challenging markets. TEMP, clearly more resilient than PERM, but it is too early still to call it the bottom, still fragile and slow paced. We see underlying demand stable, facing tough comparables nevertheless, with early cyclical pockets continuing to improve, while professionals and PERM are still trading. In the Netherlands, zooming in, growth was more or less stable at a low level of minus 6%. We are responding well to market circumstances. Auto supply chain, hiring freeze across professionals in government in particular, as well as incoming legislation impact are pressuring in the short term the sentiment. But on the other hand, we are activating new clients and we are winning in the healthcare market, where Zorgwerk, as mentioned by Sander, is a major winning player. We remain laser-focused. The team is adapting well to these circumstances, and we were able to protect profitability, as you can see in the chart. Germany saw stable quarter-on-quarter movement as decline rates remained at minus 7%. We see the labor market environment still challenging and unchanged. But our efforts here are paying off. We are back to profitability, as mentioned before, already last call of Q2, and we are structurally improving our business. Our teams have done very well. Belgium, virtually unchanged. A slight decline combined with good adaptability. Operational is growing 2%, reflecting improvement in industrial segments. Like in other countries, professional remains challenging. And as mentioned in May, during our Capital Markets Day, a good strategic progress. The healthcare marketplace is received well. And by putting the decision-making in the hands of talent, talent immediately self-selects and self-services 50% of the shifts in the first hour. If we then look at the Northern European sub-regions to the right, then we see a mixed picture. Poland is strong growth at 12% again, and Switzerland again at plus 7%, leading the pack, while Nordics remain challenging, subdued at minus 17%. On the other hand, profitability is almost in line with group average, becoming good contributors and contributing to our diversification. And let's move on to the segment Southern Europe, UK, and Latin on slide 10. In France, we see a story of two tales. On one hand, we see decline rates easing, and we continue to see resilience in our industrial pockets. Operation was down 3% year on year, but sequentially stable. On the other hand, as many of you, of course, are aware of, ongoing political uncertainty puts pressure on hiring confidence, something we see again weighing on our, in particular, firm business. Professional, albeit still negative, stepped up to minus 8% from minus 18 in the previous quarter as we start analyzing the healthcare legislation impact of 2024. Digital trades in line with the France group. Despite the decline, good operational discipline and a leaner cost structure enabled us to achieve an EBITDA margin of 4%. Italy continues to grow for six quarters in a row now. Operation was solid, plus 4%, while we are continuing to diversify our portfolio in growth segments such as digital and healthcare. Profitability came at 5.1%, reflecting key strategic investments as we're getting ready for the Hansa Talent Platform launch. Iberia remains a key performing market, growing 7%. Spain grew strongly again at 8%. We see the payoff of our investments in growth segments, and we'll keep doing so with many opportunities still to grow further. Portugal, by the way, is also returning to growth. Furthermore, revenue and profit performance were mixed across other Southern European countries, the UK and Latin America. The UK in particular showed some signs of stabilization, albeit at a low level, minus 8%, with PERM still very weak at minus 21%. In Latin America, we still see growth, but the growing uncertainty in Argentina is starting to weigh in. And let's move on to now Asia Pacific on slide 11. Japan demonstrated again solid growth plus 6% combined with strong profitability. Japan is one of the countries that operates talent centers at scale, supporting solid growth in our operational business. Digital continues to do well, and we are ideally positioned to support clients and talent in a structurally candidate scarce market. Australia and New Zealand, good adaptability, while the market conditions remain subdued. India continues to grow double digits, and we continue to invest in growth segments there. Overall, the EBITDA margin for APAC was 4.3% in the third quarter, showing good execution while continuing to invest in growth and a stronger Randstad. That concludes the performance of our Q geographies. So now let me now walk you through our combined financial performance on slide 13. From a specialization point of view, building on the progression of the last few quarters, and as Sandra highlighted, operation is now flat. Professional and digital remain stable, while enterprise also saw growth in Q3. We continue to implement new wins from early in the year, and in this quarter, we won considerably 14 notable deals already in addition to the previous ones won earlier in the year. Once again, our gross profit and OPEX, as you can see, were well aligned, but more about that later. The Quartus EBITDA margin was 3.3%, similar profitability margin as last year. Underlying EBITDA was 191 million euros, very close in absolute terms. In reality, actually, the difference being only the adverse effects impact. Now, let me unpack the items until net income. Integration costs and one-offs. in Q3 amounted to 38 million euros. This quarter, this was mostly related to harnessing the weak environment we still see in Northern Europe and France, as we continue to drive structural cost reduction. In the amortization and impairment of intangible assets, really nothing relevant, just a regular accounting treatment, as you can see, of the PPA of Zorgwerk. Net finance costs, again, just the regular interest payments. And the effective tax rate also for the first nine months was 30%, within our guidance of 29% to 31% for the full year. Adjusted net income was 120 million euros. And with that, let's continue and look at our gross margin bridge on slide 14. Remember, like for like, we need to remove 40 basis points from the divestment of Monster in our line HRS, as we partly already deconsolidated last year in September. So overall, the year-over-year comparable is 70 basis points down. Temp margin is 50 basis points down yearly over a year, broadly similar to the decline in Q2 and Q1. The key driver remains mixed. Four main points. Incremental demand coming primarily from enterprise clients. operational as you just saw is still way more resilient than professional digital specializations and we continue to see even in 2025 geographical divergence with northern europe still stubbornly challenging and southern europe continuing to do better furthermore this court in particular we see a significant adverse fx impact in our gross margin and gross profit firm contribution was also down 20 basis points decelerating even further despite analyzing steep declines as key per markets as we just mentioned before remain challenging in hrs and other pretty much flat excluding monster if you correct for the 40 basis points mentioned rpo remains robust growing three percent as we are finding new ways to revenue in mid market new clients and new activities this is the market at the moment and overall we were able to offset a large part of these moving parts if not all in our results which brings me now to the opex slide on on slide 15. And remember, this one is sequentially. Our underlying operating expenses came in at $878 million, down sequentially $34 million organically. Operating discipline and focus on talent service models resulted once more in fuel productivity gains. Furthermore, we continue to drive structural indirect costs down quarter after quarter. Leaking it back to our capital markets event, with these additional efforts in the first half of the year, we are now on track to deliver north of 100 million euros net structural savings already in 2025. We have incurred restructuring charges once again this quarter as we continue to address permanently efficiency gains in Northern Europe and France primarily. Remember, the payback of this is lower than one year, as we can already see in action in this quarter. Despite the overall headline number for OPEX, this does include selective growth segment investments in Japan, Italy, Spain, United States, Canada, among others, as well as keeping and raising slightly our strategic investments. Similar to Q1 and Q2, we have successfully maintained our EBITDA margin year over year, resulting again in a recovery ratio of over 70%. Overall, we continue to position Randstad for the future. Moving on to our cash and solid balance sheet slides, our free cash flow for the quarter was positive 244 million euros, reflecting seasonality and solid cash conversion. Year to date, we currently have 385 million free cash flow, up 126 million versus last year. DSO was 56.2 days, up five days sequentially. Here again, the very same client mix puts upward pressure, with most of the impact accounted by the larger clients. Our leverage ratio decreased to 1.6, and we were pleased to see net debt decline 232 million sequentially from what is a seasonal peak in Q2. And that brings me to the outlook slide on slide 17. Let me start with the current momentum. Looking ahead, the overall mood remains cautious, in a way fragile, with mixed signals depending on the country. Volume in early October are in line with the broader quarter. Underlying trends remain largely unchanged, however, with a more pronounced year-over-year FX effect. Looking at gross margin, we expect gross margin to be stable to a notch higher quarter-on-quarter, balancing the seasonal holiday and idle time impact of Q3 versus the strength of manufacturing and logistic associated typically with the end of the year. Sequentially, we also anticipate a slight increase in operating expenses due to the reversal of Q3 seasonality, partially, again, balanced out by the ongoing structural cost optimization in the linear hand start. We expect, similar to the previous quarters, at least a similar level of profitability in Q4 compared to Q3, broadly in line with the regular in-three-year pattern. And to summarize, let me wrap up. The market stabilization we saw in Q2 continued into Q3. We once again protected profitability while funding growth and critical investments in our transformation. As Sandra detailed, our focus on delivery excellence and digital first is actively transforming our business model, and we see it. We are delivering and building the future of Randstad, a more specialized differentiated Randstad with higher operating leverage from a smarter, more efficient delivery and a continuously linear cost structure supporting it. And with this, we conclude our prepared remarks and we open for questions.

Thank you very much, George. And before we open for questions, maybe one small comment from my side. Last call, I was a little too quick to wrap up the call. So I owe you all an apology for that. So we'll make sure that we have ample time for all your questions this time. Again, apologies. So Elba, let's open it up for some questions.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are now ready to take your questions. If you wish to ask a question, please press key pound five on your telephone keypad. We kindly remind you that you're limited to one question per round and a follow-up on the second round. If you wish to withdraw a question, please press key pound six on your telephone keypad. Our first question comes from Remy Grenu from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Morning, gentlemen. Sorry, I hope you can hear me okay. My question would be a clarification on the outlook. How should we think about your comments on stable activity in October? Does it mean that we should use the minus 1.2% organic growth in Q3 as a starting base for the upcoming quarter, given the current trading? And if so, I mean, except for the Coinbase, what has changed versus the trend of gradual but consistent sequential improvement within the organic growth over the last few quarters? It feels to me like the comments are becoming a little bit more cautious on the outlook, especially on Europe. So just want to understand your view and your feeling today versus when you ended Q2. and what you're seeing in terms of outlook for volume of activity, whether it's discussions from clients or signals that you're getting from the market.

Thanks. Yeah, so thank you, Rémi, for that question. We were, of course, expecting it. I'll give the headlines, and then I'll leave the fine print to George, so to speak. I mean, by and large, what we're seeing, so we're seeing still a high level of uncertainty in the marketplace. the politics, the geopolitics. We're also seeing AI and AI boom, if you will, that's definitely helping economic activity, particularly in the United States. At the same time, all of that still, and I mentioned it in my comments, results in a stagnant labor market. So there's not a lot of mobility, not a lot of hiring, not a lot of quitting. We have seen stabilizing demand, so that's good. um so by and large i would say the expectations are more of the same there is no major catalyst up or down on the horizon now as always there will be puts and takes by geography by industry by specialization the usual uh fluctuations in uh in the business I mean, over this quarter, we've seen good progress on temp, on operational, on digital in North America, in RPO, in Spain, Japan, North America. So we have good nuggets in there. We also have the big challenges, and I would qualify, summarize them as Northwest Europe and professional. That is the two, the two big ones that are still, still out there.

So, George, I don't know if you want to... Yeah, I'll just say because... Yeah, just a fine print, as you called it. So, Remy, good morning. I'll say if you look, your question was, does it change? No. So if you look at the starting point of October, I think it's fair to take, let's say, the quarter as a basis. Q3, probably that's why you might feel like Q3 is always a volatile. It has included volatile summer months. September was between minus one, minus two. But also remember, we're facing more, let's say, difficult comparables as we go into into q4 uh so that's probably why there is a question but overall pretty much the same unchanging trends one one overarching comment also for the questions to come uh we now really are about fine fine fine print i mean the tone of the last quarters and again this quarter as we now look at q4 is we are putting so much change in how we operate with discipline and a smarter Randstad, removing structurally leaner, becoming a leaner company as well on how we support it, that we're looking at Q4 pretty much of an uptick, not in profitability, but again, protecting profitability as we've been doing in Q3 and Q2.

Yeah, and if I just may follow up on one of the things you said on Randstad operational versus professional, it seems like we see continued divergence between the two. I mean, earlier during this earnings season, we heard Page flagging that they will stop working under their PagePersonal, which to me feels like it's the most professional, but correct me if I'm wrong, and that closure of PagePersonal is on AI risk and disintermediation. Can you elaborate a little bit more on the weakness you are experiencing in that specialization on your organic growth and how the growth margin in that business has evolved since the mid to high 20s you were flagging at the 2023 capital market day, I think that was?

No, so from a demand point of view, as you note, Rémi, it's professional that's challenging. I think to make a clear link between AI and that trend is too early to call. My hunch and view is, given the uncertainty, clients are just very reluctant to hire. So I think it's more debt than anything to do with AI. Even the biggest AI proponents and accelerators, the big tech companies, yes, they have fewer people, but it's a percentage or two, maybe three here or there. It's too early to say that that's all AI. I think it's a bit of an excuse, a bit of a flag, so to speak, but I think it's the market, the market environment, the uncertainty. The hesitance to invest, the hesitance to invest in infrastructure, the hesitance to invest in teams and people. You had a few points more detailed on gross margin and stuff. I think George will comment.

Let me again, I'm the fine print now, so... I think, look, professionals, let's be clear as well. I mean, we can't celebrate we're still in decline, but we do celebrate that things have improved again and continue to progress from Q1 to Q2, Q2 to Q3. So let me be also clear there. Our gross margin is stable. And what we do see, and I want to be clear, when we talk about growth segments and investments, in many of these are within our professional specialization. In the United States, in healthcare, in many areas, we continue to invest so i wouldn't say it's too early if anything you see more resilience and more more in line with the part where we are in the cycle on the operational specialization and you see a behavior that is recognizable in professional but more to do with confidence than necessarily anything else thank you very much very clear thank you

The next question comes from Simon Lechypre from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. On gross profit margin, I mean, looking at the performance of your temp business, so minus 50 bps here on the air, so it is weaker than Q2 despite volumes have been improving. I mean, do you see more competition in the market, or is there some impact from the growth of your digital platforms? That would explain this. And if you can comment on what you expect for the temp gross profit margin in Q4, please.

Yeah, so let's be clear. So gross margin, this quarter in particular, there's two, three items I think it's important to highlight, Simon. One is FX. I mean, you can see it from the tables that we disclosed. That's approximately 10 million, 10 to 13 million impact. Just to put it into perspective, every 5 million. And now we also have to kind of really go into fine, fine, fine print. Every 5 million is 10 basis points. So you see the volatility that these things can have. So FX played an impact. PERM, indeed, turned out to be even decelerating from already a very low level. On the temp side, I think actually we see trends that are pretty similar. It's the market we are operating in, both from a geographical perspective, and a specialization slash large enterprises trading more or up trading more than than smaller companies the one thing perhaps um perhaps that we also need to look at and it's you can see it in the numbers is in in some way slightly more idle time than initially expected but you also see us addressing that so if you look at some of the one offs some of this has been have been taken on on the gross profit cost of service line meaning that at least we are taking action in making sure that idle time remains within an acceptable level going forward so looking into q4 hardly any triggers changing in the market so pretty much a stabilization and somewhat of a reverse of this seasonality impact

Okay, and can you comment on the competitive environment? I mean, do you see more competition in some markets?

No, we see competition in markets as we've always seen, Simon. So no, not any different than Q2, Q1 2024 or 2023 for the matter.

We remain firm in terms of pricing, yeah.

Let's go to our next question. This one comes from from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Just one on SG&A, please. You did have some slightly higher one-off costs below the line, and also SG&A came in better than expected in the quarter. Did you get the full benefit of the cost-saving measures in Q3, or is there more to come in Q4?

Yeah, so thanks, Vasily, by the way, good morning. I mean, our OPEX, again, let's also not forget, and I want to be transparent, our gross profit is impacted clearly by effects, but of course, our OPEX as well, still organically significantly down. And as you rightly said, a large part of that, of course, is what we've been doing already in Q1 and Q2, removing, let's say, structural eliminating costs and becoming a leaner Randstad. And that has a supportive impact of at least, I'll say, 15 to 20 million already this quarter three. And that will obviously, that is permanent. So that will stay on as we progress through the year. But as we now address still, let's say primarily this quarter, Northern Europe and a little bit more in France, that will also support costs into Q4. The flip side of this is in Q3, we always have the seasonal impact of holidays. So it's going to be balancing one with the other as we go into Q4.

I understand. Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Rory McKenzie from UBS. Please go ahead.

Morning, all. It's Rory here. I want to ask about the cost base as well, please. Obviously, for several quarters now, we've seen the cost base reduce more than expected and restructuring charges higher than expected. And what should we expect for the restructuring charge in Q4? And then just zooming out, I think this is the smallest quarterly cost base you've had since 2016. So how do you think about what that means for the shape of Randstad in future years? And what are your thoughts about position in terms of spare capacity as we think about how you're ready for the next cycle?

Yeah, so I'll start and then Sander, if you want to compliment anything. Look, Rory, we talked about in capital markets event at a very high level, Randstad is becoming a digital first, reorganizing around delivery excellence and our talent service models, which has two big consequences on our customers. One is we become smarter, more efficient in doing our work. And that is basically the power of largely either having digital or having things done at scale instead of a very fragmented place. So we becoming smarter and more efficient in how we do our work. The second part is exactly because we digitize and harmonize much more we can structurally reduce our supporting costs and these two efforts continue to contribute quarter after quarter into what we see today in in q3 it is fair to say on your question should we expect one of in q4 i mean by by by definition um One-offs, we don't forecast them. At the same time, let me also be transparent. Yes, as we continue to roll out our talent platforms, as we continue to optimize how we work, this will mean that we'll find ways to basically make Randstad a leaner company. The advantage of this is that we enter 2026 much stronger, and in the future, not only we are more resilient, but we increase significantly our earnings potential.

Thanks. It feels like maybe another link between the ongoing, I guess, gross margin drop and reduction in SG&A is the changing mix of your demand, not just your model. It feels like structurally you've got more growth in large enterprise clients, low margin outsourcing. So does that reveal that clients are looking for just lower and lower cost channels for employment?

well i guess anyone is always looking for something more efficient but what this reveals is the market at the moment and the demand there is at the moment all the incremental demand comes primarily from large enterprises pretty much in line with previous cycles And as I always say, I use the expression, I mean, in many ways, a large part of our OPEC works hand in hand with our gross margin or gross profit, because indeed, as you know, the both the geographical component of it, which is Southern European countries, typically have a lower margin, but also a higher conversion than some of our northern European countries and even North America. But also on the client side, our large clients have a much more efficient cost to deliver than our traditional SME client base. So yes, there's a component of that. But what I highlight is the structural change underlying going throughout in 2025. That's what really, really exciting me for 2026.

Got it. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Simon van Oppen from Kepler-Chevreux. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Sander and George. I have a question on France. You delivered quite an improvement in France sequentially in Q3 versus Q2 against the same comparators as last year. Can you talk a little bit more about the third quarter in France in terms of what end markets were performing well and about the quarter itself? Was it back-end loaded and what was the XR rate in France going into Q4? Was it stable or sequentially improving? Thank you.

Yeah, so, Simon, we normally don't necessarily talk too much about exit rates in particular, but it was stable, so let's put it like this. And again, France is a bit of a story, I think, of two tales, even geographically. I mean, Sandy, you were just there, but even geographically, you see a very sharp difference between the western part of the country and the eastern part of the country, but overall, we see actually the market relatively stable, operational continuing to improve. I think if we continue to double-click in that respect, professional for us has been a big step up. Obviously, we had this healthcare change in isolation last year. As you probably know, we have a strong, very strong healthcare specialization in France. Now we start analyzing that. But also what I think it's quite, let's say, remarkable in our French market excuse me, performance and more what it means for the future is some of the, and as we discussed in Q1 and Q2, some of our one-offs and restructured charges had already been in France. And we now start seeing the benefit of that hitting our P&L in Q3. So that makes it basically more resilient and the company better prepared for 2026.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from Conrad Sommer from ABN AMRO, OTOBHF. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two, please. The first one, there's a general election coming up in the Netherlands next week for the outlook of the Dutch staffing market. Do you think a left-wing or a right-wing government would be beneficial? And my second question, what's, in your view, the single most important argument why Randstad would be a net beneficiary of the AI trends in the labor market, as opposed to the risk of some disruption? Thank you.

Thank you very much for the question. Well, I've learned not to preempt any election around the globe, so I'm not going to do that this time around. We'll see what the outcome is and we'll deal with that accordingly. I don't think there are major differences in terms of the labor market between the various parties. Yes, there are some nuances, but I think the direction is not going to change in a major way over the next couple of years, independent of the elections. Sorry. So why am I excited about AI? Sorry about that. If you take a step back, and you know I'm a bit of a technology aficionado, and that's why I'm so proud about our digital marketplaces, and the fact that we now have 15% of our business running through those digital marketplaces. And on top of that, I graduated on AI in 1987. So I couldn't be more excited about AI finally seeing the light of day. And so we see it as a tremendous opportunity because if we have our digital marketplaces, we will embed AI and we are embedding AI and it's already embedded in those digital marketplaces to do what? To engage with talents. to find talents, to reach out to talents, to do skills assessments, to do interviews, to do onboarding. All of that is going to be part of our digital marketplaces. That's one thing. The other thing, of course, similarly with clients, when to reach out to clients, how to reach out to clients, et cetera. And then what I like to call the Randstad digital brain. And this is something focusing on supply demand. I talked about the map in the US. We now know by zip code in the US what our supply demand situation is. So we can use AI to assess and to take action. AI, let's say, there couldn't be anyone more better positioned in this industry than Ransom to leverage AI, specifically because of our digital first strategy. The good thing there is not everybody can win that game. A, we're leading. We're probably one of the biggest, if not the biggest company in the digital marketplace space, in the platform space. and we will continue to scale. So we talked a lot about the US, we talked a lot about Belgium, we talked about the various businesses in healthcare. For next year, we have on the roll Canada, the UK, Italy, France, and the Netherlands to launch digital marketplaces, primarily in our operational business. So this is just the beginning of a major wave. Why will we be successful? A, we have the investment capacity. You know we have been investing in our business over the last couple of years. We will continue to do that at the same levels. We have to scale those marketplaces. We have the team to make it all happen. Last but not least, we have to wear it all to make it all happen, and that is not the case for many players. I think we couldn't be better positioned to benefit from AI. And we will move at pace to get to those benefits.

That's very helpful. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, just as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press key pound five on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Mark Schwarzenberg from ING. Please go ahead.

Yeah, good morning, everybody. A couple of questions left. First, I want to come back to the OPEX line. We had a significant beat in Q3, partly driven then by FX, but your kindness, therefore, for Q4 is slightly higher due to seasonality. But yeah, it's a bit difficult to call what a seasonality of looking a few years back. The difference that you're making, continuing to make progress on the rollout of the digital strategy, Is it fair to say that maybe also Q4 will be, again, a better quarter than Q3 and maybe looking even more important out to 26? Should we take the second half of this year in terms of OPEX line as a bit of a starting base, like multiply it by two to get to the 26 number? Or should we even assume vertical savings continuing to more than offset the price inflation that's currently going on?

even have a lower opex line than the two times a second half this year that's my first question should we take them one by one great question right mark yeah so on the on the first on q3 to q4 and then more on the esoteric uh question on 2026 uh on 26 on q3 to q4 so mark first of all when we say seasonality two important comments. One important comment. In Q3, we always have an impact from, let's say, a holiday's accounting and how we actually account for all this throughout the year. So somewhat artificially, our Q3 OPEX gets a little bit of a tailwind from that respect. And we account 10 to 15 million for that. That typically, of course, reverses in Q4. At the same time, yes, we continue to do structural cost savings as we just, again, did another restructure on top of just normal attrition and management of our cost base operational discipline. So yes, those two things will basically balance. For now, we also highlight that, I mean, we enter into Q4 still investing in growth segments. We are in many ways continuing to roll out our transformation. So I think the best guidance we can give is stable to a notch higher. As we enter 2026, the mantra is pretty much the same. So as we continue to roll out delivery excellence on our talent platform and capture, let's say, benefits from doing things smarter, both on gaining productivity, but also eliminating continually structurally our cost base. We said it before, the path to achieve that is clear. This will not only build resilience, but it will build a significantly more profitable Randstad on a growth environment. um as for the modeling or the more like specific question for 2026 i think that your rationale is is logic we'll continue to update anything as we progress in q4 yeah and the second question was mark so yeah i'm just going back on your last last remark so my reasoning is rational to take the second half as a starting point and then Yes, that's what we mean by we are eliminating and making Randstad a leaner company.

And then maybe some comments. Sorry, Mark, some comments. So we're going to be focused, of course, in 26 on growth, despite, let's say, more of the same in the market. So our growth will be, I call it our own growth, better fulfillment through delivery excellence, investing in growth segments, speedier fulfillment through our digital marketplaces. All of that will have a positive impact on our top line, if you will.

yeah yeah not clear thank you for that um and then focusing on on the us uh your margin did see let's say a percentage point improvement year on year and also quarter and quarter you see the progress and that totally fits into the digital marketplace strategy and if you then look to the top line performance yeah it's slightly better than in q2 in terms of growth but only slightly Is that because the market is simply a little bit weaker? To be fair, maybe a little bit more market share gains.

We find ourselves ahead of the markets. I think the market hasn't changed. If you do look at things, and Sander does not like when we highlight this, but if you look, we have significantly higher tough comparables in Q3 and Q4. logistics picked up significantly last year already in q3 and uh and q4 so i think if anything from a percentage perspective that's the only thing that that you see that perhaps might ever be uh but the rest doesn't change we continue to be ahead of market and we continue to roll out uh our digital marketplace there okay

Can I squeeze in a last one as a follow-up on Conrad's question on the AI? Because I think... Because you're a friend, you're a friend, Mark. They're all friends. Thanks.

All right, Mark, go on then.

Go on, go on. I hope I say a friend after this question. Yeah, so you addressed the AI side for runs on the benefits. They're obviously clear. But what about the supply side? How do you see that? The repetitive jobs, particularly maybe in the accounting consulting area that are maybe disappearing because of AI. And of course, there will be new jobs created, but it always takes a few years to get there. How do you see that part?

Yeah, so Mark, I was talking to a client the other day in the US, and he told me 15 years ago, there were 1 million people in the US in toll booths. They're not there anymore because we all have these digital vignettes today. Yet the unemployment is at historically low levels. It has ticked up a little bit everywhere, but it's still low. So I guess what I'm saying is we are AI optimists. The world needs a productivity boost, which is good. um also if you look at some of the research primarily by uh by by the world economic forum i mean they say ai will create will will drive the creation of 170 million new jobs anticipating a net growth of 78 million new jobs so so i think The history tells us, and the issue there, Mark, is always it's easier to say, okay, that task or that job might disappear. It's a little bit more difficult to say what the new jobs are that will arise. But rest assured, we will be there where the new jobs will arise to help our clients find the talent they need. That's our job. And then one more point, maybe on the shorter term, I think the lack of hiring or the low hiring levels these days is more driven by the overall uncertainty in the market than by AI itself. We have the big tech companies, they have fewer jobs left and right, but it's a percentage or two or three. It's not meaningful. And for the rest, everything you read is, yes, AI is great and it's here to stay and it's relevant. But scaling AI, that's yet another thing that will take a bit more time. So, in summary, we're optimists and we will skate, as we always say, where the puck is going to be.

That's very clear. Thanks, Sander, for that elaborate explanation. Thanks very much.

Of course. Any other questions?

It appears we have no more questions. So, I will hand back over the word to Mr. van het Noordele for any closing remarks.

Yeah, thank you very much, Elba, for your facilitations. And thanks to all on the call for your questions. Thanks to the team here for doing a good job again this quarter. And a final thank you, of course, to our more than 600,000 talent and Randstad team members for their hard work as truly the best team in the industry.

Thank you. This concludes the call. Thank you and have a good day.