On May 21, before the US stock market, BOSS Direct Hire (NASDAQ: BZ, HK: 2076) released its financial report for the first quarter of 2024. The company achieved solid growth in the first quarter, and its main business indicators, such as revenue, number of paying enterprise customers, and average monthly active users, all hit a record high.
In the first quarter, BOSS direct employment achieved a revenue of 1.704 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 33.4%, which exceeded the company's previous expectations. Under the non general accounting standards, the adjusted net profit of the company continued its healthy level, reaching 531 million yuan.
In the peak season of job recruitment in 2024, BOSS direct recruitment will continue to explore the incremental market with an aggressive attitude, attracting enterprises and job seekers who have not used online recruitment services to become platform users. In the first quarter, the average monthly active users (MAU) directly employed by BOSS reached 46.6 million, up 17.4% year on year.
On the enterprise side, the number of paid enterprise customers of the company reached 5.7 million in the twelve months ended March 31, 2024, up 42.5% year on year. Among them, the proportion of revenue contributed by typical incremental users such as blue collar, second tier and lower urban enterprises has further expanded.
Zhao Peng, the founder, chairman and CEO of BOSS, revealed on the performance call after the release of the financial report that the 5.7 million paying enterprise customers were distributed among more than 3.5 million enterprises. He said: "The order of magnitude of 3.5 million seems to be very large in the global enterprise service market, but it accounts for less than 10% of the enterprises with a scale of more than 40 million in China. It is a long journey and full of huge business opportunities to help a large number of small and micro enterprises in China gradually realize the digital recruitment."
Considering the gradual recovery of enterprise recruitment demand, the company's revenue in the second quarter of 2024 is expected to be between 1.91 billion yuan and 1.96 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 28.4% - 31.7%.
Recruiting end demand recovery promotes new high revenue
Entering the spring recruitment season of 2024, the demand for enterprise recruitment has seen a steady recovery.
The blue collar category has continued the trend of continuous growth since 2023, with the growth rate of recruitment demand leading the market. The proportion of blue collar income in the first quarter rose to more than 35%.
Compared with last year, the prosperity of the manufacturing and logistics industry has significantly improved this year, and has maintained a steady upward trend. From the Spring Festival to the middle of May, the average number of new jobs in the manufacturing and logistics industry has increased by about 40% over the same period last year. At the same time, the situation of white-collar workers has also improved over the same period last year.
From the perspective of company size, the recruitment demand of large enterprises has gradually recovered. The recent trend of Internet/AI, finance and other sub industries is relatively better.
From the perspective of cities, the post increment and increase in the second tier and below cities are obvious. In the first quarter, manufacturing developed cities such as Wenzhou, Taizhou, Quanzhou and Shantou contributed a large number of new jobs, while tourism cities such as Sanya and Xishuangbanna also contributed a considerable increase in job demand.
Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan, Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan, and Qianxinan Buyei and Miao Autonomous Prefecture of Guizhou are among the regions with the highest proportion of non professional recruiters (enterprise heads, executives, department heads, etc.) directly employed by BOSS. The number of positions in these regions also reached a new record in March 2024.
Today, BOSS direct recruitment provides access for more and more enterprises to recruit talents on time and on demand. A hotpot restaurant in Jingmen opened in the middle of January this year. Within two weeks, it had recruited more than ten part-time employees on BOSS direct recruitment. A start-up company in the new energy field with the title of "national level technology-based small and medium-sized enterprise", the recruitment team only used BOSS direct recruitment channel after considering the input-output ratio. After the year, the company launched into the overseas market and recruited suitable candidates in a short time after releasing relevant posts.
The penetration of blue collar and sinking market in the job market continues to increase
In the first quarter, the platform MAU increased by 17.4% year-on-year to 46.6 million, reaching a historical high. In March, BOSS directly hired more than 50 million monthly active users for the first time, reaching 55 million, a year-on-year increase of 24%. At the same time, the user stickiness of the platform remains stable, and the DAU proportion in the MAU runs smoothly.
For a long time, blue collar job seekers mainly rely on offline acquaintance introductions and labor intermediaries. However, with the increase of mobile Internet penetration, BOSS direct recruitment has gradually become an online "job supermarket" for blue collar workers - there are many positions in stock, widely distributed in industries, and recruiters respond quickly.
Mr. Xing, an equipment maintenance worker from Shanxi, entered the factory through an offline intermediary in 2022, and started to employ directly with BOSS from his second job. He changed jobs in five cities in two years, and his salary gradually increased. Mr. Xu, a wire cutting worker from Shandong, mainly relied on the introduction of acquaintances to find a job in the first ten years. In 2018, he became a direct hire user of BOSS and has talked about three jobs on the platform so far.
Strengthen the ability to meet user needs
While the scale of service users continues to reach new heights, the platform maintains the ability to meet the needs of users. This is inseparable from the company's continuous investment in product experience and technology. In the first quarter, the research and development expenses directly employed by BOSS reached 468 million yuan, up 40% year on year.
The level by level optimization of product technical details has increased the possibility of "two-way rush" of job seekers and recruiters bit by bit. In this quarter, BOSS direct recruitment continued to optimize the user experience of job recruitment and improve the efficiency of users' work in the links of post/expectation release, screening, chat and communication, and introduced the capability of self-developed large model called "Nanbei Pavilion" to explore in combination with specific scenarios.
At the same time, long-term and continuous basic research in occupational science has continuously deepened the technological accumulation of the platform. In the first quarter, the Career Science Lab (CSL) directly employed by BOSS made progress in bilateral reciprocal recommendation, career mobility, organizational knowledge management and other directions, and relevant achievements were published on top international academic conferences and journals in the field of artificial intelligence and information retrieval, such as WWW-2024, SIGIR-2024, TOIS, etc.
In April 2024, the Company, together with a number of universities, enterprises and public institutions, jointly prepared the Industry oriented Large scale Pre training Model Technology and Application Evaluation Methods Part 9: Recruitment Large Model, which was officially released at the "Artificial Intelligence+" high-quality development seminar of the Chinese Academy of Information and Communications, and is the first large-scale pre training model standard for the recruitment industry in China.
Guard user security
While actively exploring to improve matching efficiency and user gains, technology also silently guards platform users in another way. At present, the AI capability has been integrated into the enterprise certification, position audit and other links of BOSS direct employment.
On line, enterprise users can self complete office environment certification with the help of intelligent assistants. Offline, the "minesweeping" system that can intelligently plan routes and filter invalid addresses enables offline position review teams to find target companies faster and more accurately.
In addition to technology, the platform also ensures users' job security from many aspects.
In April 2024, members of the "Iron Wall" team summarized the practical experience accumulated in the verification into a "Job Safety Guide" to help job seekers identify risks more accurately. At the same time, the number of enterprises settled and positions released under the "Conch Preference", a position fidelity plan for blue collar users, also grew rapidly, covering more than 27 million job seekers in the first quarter.
In the first quarter, BOSS direct recruitment continued to cooperate with law enforcement departments to combat false recruitment from the source, provided 54 clues to illegal crimes to local public security organs, helped to crack 16 cases, cracked down on 12 criminal gangs, and captured 148 criminal suspects.
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