New Work SE reports growth in recruiting business

HR Solutions & Talent Access, New Work SE's largest sales segment, increased its sales by 7% to EUR 161.4 million (EUR 151.5 million) in a difficult market environment. The B2C business decreased as planned by 17 percent to EUR 56.4 million (EUR 67.7 million). This is due to the restructuring of XING from a general professional network to a jobs network and the subsequent strategic focus on B2B revenues. The smallest segment, Marketing Solutions, is feeling the effects of the reduction in XING ad impressions resulting from the repositioning. Segment revenues fell accordingly by 21 percent to EUR 9.6 million (EUR 12.1 million).

CEO Petra von Strombeck: "We are currently experiencing two parallel effects: On the one hand, we are still feeling the effects of the recession in which the economy finds itself. The fact that practically all indicators such as the IMF economic barometer, the ifo business climate index and the IAB labor market barometer are pointing downwards is clearly reflected in our new business. The economy is in a bad way, which means that many companies are postponing necessary measures to combat the shortage of skilled workers until later. At the same time, XING, our best-known brand, is in the middle of its transformation into a jobs network. Revenues are declining as planned, but the B2B business is currently unable to compensate for this effect for the reasons mentioned above. Naturally, we are not satisfied with this development and launched cost-cutting measures early on in the year, which are already bearing fruit. Even in this difficult environment, I can therefore confirm the pro forma EBITDA guidance of € 92-100 million that was adjusted in May."

The transformation to a jobs network - XING 

The member base of the jobs network, XING, continues to grow and increased to 22 million in the reporting period. Since October, the transformation to a jobs network has been reflected for all members in a new homepage and navigation, which focuses on searching for a new job and being found by recruiters. "Career interactions" is a new reporting metric that is made up of application processes started via job ads in the XING job market, the so-called "Apply Intents" and responses to recruiter inquiries ("Recruiter Replies"). It amounted to over 10 million in the first nine months of the 2023 financial year, which corresponds to growth of more than 50 percent compared to the previous year. 

The employer review platform in the DACH region, kununu, is also continuing to grow and has recorded the most successful year in the company's history to date. In the first nine months, the number of Workplace Insights increased by 1.7 million to 9.8 million. This includes around 5.4 million experience reports, more than 3.3 million salary details and around 1.1 million pieces of information on employer culture. onlyfy by XING, the B2B brand, focused primarily on the blue-collar segment in the past quarter. Together with the kununu and XING brands, onlyfy launched an offensive in the summer of this year with new offers for HR managers and job seekers from the blue-collar segment. The majority of people in employment work in professions in which they mainly perform physical labor. However, they are often neglected in traditional recruiting. There is a shortage of skilled workers in many sectors where people work in blue-collar jobs. This is also illustrated by the forsa study commissioned by onlyfy by XING, according to which 93 percent of companies in industry, trade or services have difficulties filling vacancies.

Source: www.new-work.se