Hudson Global, Inc. (NASDAQ:HSON) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

So we’ll have a client say, just for an example, maybe they’re planning to hire 500 people a quarter. And they say, you know what, we’re going to change that to 200 people a quarter or 100 people a quarter or just put on a hiring freeze that’s the kind of behavior you see in recessions. What we saw instead was we’re still going to hire 500 people, but let’s push that into Q1, what’s the rush. And it felt to us like some of our clients were struggling to hit budget and pulling out doing all the things they could do to push expenses into 2024. And we saw a little bit — Q1 is always a weak quarter for us because of just seasonal slowdowns in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Chinese New Year. But importantly, those hiring plans haven’t gotten canceled or even reduced, they just got pushed into the future.

And what I meant by 2023 being a year of opposites was we saw that weakness. But at the same time, it was a very strong year for new business wins. I think we won more new business in 2023 than any year I can remember in terms of total contract value, and we’ll really start to see the benefit of some of those new client wins in Q2 and by midyear when they’re fully ramped up. I think a couple of those new wins will be in our top five client list, which doesn’t always happen that you win some new business, and within six months, they’re in your top five client list. So we’re in this odd dynamic now where we had weak fourth quarter results, we will have a weak first quarter results, but pretty good visibility into a strong rebound starting in Q2, and we’re very excited about what we think we can show in the second half of this year.

Marc Riddick: That’s very helpful. Thank you.

Jeffrey Eberwein: Thank you, Marc.

Operator: That concludes today’s question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the call back over to Jeff Eberwein for closing remarks.

Jeffrey Eberwein: Well, thank you again for joining us today and for your interest in Hudson Global. Feel free to contact us any time using the contact information found in our press release or on our Investor Relations website. We look forward to next quarter’s update call. Have a good day, everybody.

Operator: Thank you for joining the Hudson Global fourth quarter conference call. Today’s call has been recorded and will be available on the Investors section of our website, hudsonrpo.com.