Randstad N.V. ($RAND)

Hello, and welcome to the Randstad Q1 end 2026 Results Conference Call and Audio Webcast. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the word over to Sander van 't Noordende, CEO. Mr. van't Noordende. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much, Barton, for that kind introduction. And good morning, everybody. I'm here with Jorge and our Investor Relations team to share our Q1 2012 results. Let me first say I'm proud of our team's continued execution of our partner for talent strategy, which is delivering a strong foundation for our growth ambitions. And as a result, our growth has broadened with 63% of Randstad now in growth, up from 50% in Q4, which equates to 0.4% growth for the quarter. Overall, volume in contingent work was resilient with strong momentum in the U.S. and Southern Europe, especially, of course, in Randstad operational business. We see further stabilization in industrial markets in Northwest Europe, while the permanent and professional markets remain challenging. APAC remains robust. Together with strong adaptability, this has resulted in a solid performance with revenues of EUR 5.5 billion and an EBITA of EUR 146 million, representing a 2.7% margin. Volume trends in early April have been encouraging. And so far, we have seen very limited impact from the geopolitical situation in the Middle East. As you would expect, we are monitoring the situation vigilantly and are in constant dialogue with our clients to understand the impact they are noticing on their business. However, the current trajectory of our business gives us confidence for the months ahead. As we move further into 2026, we continue to progress well on our partner for talent strategy. Our growth through specialization is fueled by the 10x10x10 initiative, 10 markets with each 10 opportunities of EUR 10 million or more. And [ Jorge ] and the team are doing a fantastic job here and secured over EUR 600 million of new wins in Q1. In operational, we saw an uptick of client activity across our industrial segments, particularly in manufacturing, including skilled trades in markets such as Germany and Italy. We saw strong growth in the logistics sector with increased hiring forecast in key markets such as the U.S., France and the Netherlands. In Professional, we saw momentum improving in engineering in the U.S., Italy and Japan, and we are growing in health care, primarily driven by the Netherlands and Italy. After a slow January in our enterprise business, we expect trends to sequentially improve from here as we secured a number of new clients this quarter across life sciences, semiconductors and energy. The health of our pipeline also bodes well for the rest of the year. We celebrated the rollout of our digital marketplace in the U.K. And once again, Talent loves it. Within 2 hours, we had 77% of the targeted talent on the app. We are now live in 9 markets. In March alone, we managed close to 600,000 self-service shift with around 240,000 monthly active users. We also went live into front and mid-office of our Randstad platform in Italy with our digital marketplace to follow later this year. On AI, 80% of our staff are now AI trained, working smarter and more efficiently is essential to continue driving down indirect cost as a percentage of revenue. So as we enter 2026, I'm proud of our teams as our partner for talent strategy and commercial success provides a strong foundation for our growth ambitions. Because the notes on your minds, let me say a few words about the role of AI in the labor market. Above all, we are AI optimist. In the context of an aging population and persistent labor mismatches, we view AI as a critical enabler for a very welcome productivity boost. And there are a few points I'd like to make here. First, studies show that the base case for the impact of AI is a job loss of 6% to 7% over the next 5 to 10 years, with a particular focus on clerical roles, customer service, marketing and design and software development, where our exposure as Randstad is currently limited. Then it looks like AI is more about task and team augmentation than outright job replacement. So roles will change over time, and we, at Randstad call this the great adaptation of the workforce. Finally, the phenomenon of jobs disappearing and new jobs emerging is of all ages. Of the jobs we cater for today, around 60% to 70% did not exist 65 years ago when we started Randstad. Our first times were mostly executive assistance, which today are a fraction of our business. So what does this all mean for Randstad? First of all, Randstad operational and health care are 2/3 of our business today. These are typically jobs that are human-centric and minimally impacted by AI. Think about maintenance technicians, welders and fabricators, HVAC specialists and, of course, nurses and care workers. Secondly, our strategy is to ensure that we are highly relevant where the future jobs are. That's why we have our 4 specializations, each with its own growth segments such as skilled trade, logistics, engineering, health care. As the Canadian say, we are skating where the puck is going to be. In summary, we're confident by taking the right actions for our partner for talent strategy, we can navigate and benefit from the impact of AI on the labor market over the next 5 to 10 years. I'm going to now hand over to Jorge to say a bit more about our financial results. Jorge?

Thank you, Sander, and good morning, everyone. Let me start by saying that overall, we are happy to see that this quarter mostly came in line with our expectations. The trends are consistent, they are more stable and the changes we are doing are also more structural. We saw sequential improvement in growth rates across most of our markets, and we returned to organic revenue growth. This growth is led by our operational business, as Sander just highlighted, which grew 3% globally, including a strong 8% in the U.S., where our digital marketplace is driving tangible market share gains. But it's also positive to see manufacturing PMIs above 50 in most of our markets for the first time in many, many quarters. While remaining vigilant on geopolitics, we do balance momentum with strength discipline and investments in our road map, not only to protect the bottom line but also in growth to ensure we have the operational gearing ready for the coming quarters. Before we move on to the section in the markets, please a small note, we have simplified the reporting structure by removing the regional subsegments in Europe. Where applicable, the comparative figures are presented to align with this new structure. So let's dive in and let's start with North America on Page 9. In North America, we continue to build throughout the quarter with strong exit rates in our industrial sectors. The U.S. operational grew 8%, significantly outpacing the market and its double-digit profit growth validates our new model of central delivery and the digital marketplace. Professional is down 8% but improving sequentially with forms returning now to growth. Enterprise started slow, as mentioned already at the end of Q4, but ended with stronger exit rates, driven by major new wins and a solid pipeline. Digital faced muted Q1 demand but adapted well. Canada mirrors the U.S. with strong operational growth offsetting a slower enterprise starts. Overall, North American EBITA margin was 3% year-over-year, delivering a 78% recovery ratio. Now moving on to the major European markets on Slide 10. In Europe, momentum is improving across our major markets, though the split between a strong South and the slower North still remains. In the Netherlands, organic revenue returned to growth, driven by continued good performance in health care and solid positioning with large logistics and e-commerce clients. We spent Q1 implementing the new CLA together with our clients and while complex and not finished yet, we progressed well and expect this to be concluded in the next few weeks. Overall, profitability came in at 4.4%. In Germany, we are seeing early signs of recovery, down just 4%, driven by improving PMIs. Industrial pockets are returning to growth, and even automotive was still declining, it is clearly bottoming out. Public infrastructure spending has yet to materialize. In Germany, the transformation we started last year is paying off as the business pushes hard to return to growth at a more sustainable level of profitability. Now in Belgium, we still declined 6% with operations minus 4%. The weakness in the market is mostly around permanent hiring and office jobs. Now moving on to France. It remains still a 2 speed markets. On 1 side, our in-house and larger client portfolio is up 11%. On the other side, SME and skilled perm segments are currently lagging the market. Professionals here also declined 13% year-over-year, with volumes weighed down by the recent health care legislation. Overall profitability came in at 3.9%. Italy. In Italy, growth continued to accelerate on the back of a successful Olympics campaign with operational up 9% and Professional also growing now at 6% as our recent investment over 2025 payoff. Profitability came in at 5.1%, impacted this quarter by an Olympic brand awareness campaign and strategic investments for the platform. Iberia had a fantastic quarter, plus 9%, led by Spain, north of 10%, where we are firing on all cylinders, and we continue to invest in further growth, both in people and capabilities. Let's now move on to the international market slide on Slide 11. International markets are a bit of a mixed bag, as you can see. So let me quickly unpack in more detail. In Europe, we celebrated the go-live RDMP in the U.K., like Sander mentioned, and it's great to see our first talent using the platform over the last 2, 3 weeks. Poland is still growing at 2%; Switzerland 3% continue to grow and offsetting still the subdued Nordics still at minus 11%. In LatAm, we continue to see good momentum, particularly in Brazil. In Asia Pacific, Japan continued its solid growth at plus 5%, and we continue here to invest to capture structural opportunities, particularly in the digital area and in Tokyo. Australia and New Zealand declined 4% with some signs now of stabilization. India, growth accelerated to 16% as we continue to invest in growth segments. Overall, the EBITA margin for the region came at 3.6%, reflecting growth investments. And that concludes the performance of our key geographies. So let me now walk you through our combined financial performance on Slide 13. Looking at the revenue mix, we see the trends of the last few quarters continuing. Operational sees momentum now accelerating and is now growing 3%. Remember, it was flat on Q4. Professional also improved quarter-over-quarter due to strong demand in health care, particularly in the Netherlands and Italy, engineering in U.S. and Japan. Digital and enterprise started the year slowly and tougher comps certainly did not help. Pipeline deal wins and exit rates for enterprise look better as we enter into Q2. Now our gross profit and OpEx were well aligned, but we will talk more about it particularly later. Zooming into EBITA. EBITA margin was 2.7%. Underlying EBITA was EUR 146 million with an adverse steel FX impact this quarter of EUR 6 million, which will start leveling off from here. Integration costs and one-offs this quarter amounted to EUR 23 million, and they were mostly related to basically the Netherlands or Northern and Western Europe as we continue to drive structural change across our organization. Net finance costs are just a regular interest payments albeit lower, reflecting the lower net debt coming down. The effective tax rate for the first 3 months was 31%. We expect '26 ETR towards the higher end of 29% to 31% range, and this all led to an adjusted net income of EUR 91 million for the quarter. But with that, let's indeed now deep dive into the gross margin slides on Slide 14. And a few things about the margins. So gross margin was down 80 basis points to 18.5%. Within that, our temp margin is down 60 basis points and primarily with the points we had highlighted already in the previous quarter. On one hand, operational remains more resilient, if not even now in growth versus professional and digital specializations. Two, we continue to see geographical divergence with Northern Europe below group average and Southern Europe continuing to do better. The adverse FX impact following, let's say, liberation days, it still plays a role. And last but not least, as we mentioned in Q4, there were incidentals between Q4 and Q1 last year, which impacted a little bit the comparisons. Perm contribution was still down 20 basis points, is now somewhat stable at low level as key European perm markets still remain very challenging. In HRS and other, remember, here, we include RPO, outplacement and a lot of other fee businesses, MSP is still flat. Now this is the market at the moment and where the majority of the gross margin pressure is simply a reflection of the continued growth divergence across our portfolio. Albeit most of this pressure starts to annualize as we progress through the quarters ahead. Now let me bring you now in more details into Slide 15 on our OpEx bridge. Underlying operating expenses were EUR 873 million, moving in lockstep with gross profit as we've been doing in the previous quarters. Despite inflationary pressures we lowered core costs, excuse me, OpEx quarter-over-quarter, and we are building clear operational leverage. We're achieving this through delivery excellence, growing volumes in key markets and delivering to the most productive to service models without adding as much headcount. In fact, the correlation between volume and FTE is now at a 6-year low. We also continue to reduce indirect costs as a percentage of revenue through scale and technology. Overall, I think the important point about our OpEx is that the change in the past 3 years proved to be structural with, again, the last 4 quarters, ICR hitting close to 70% at 68%. What this means is that we are improving our ability to offset gross profit declines by reducing OpEx or to convert gross profit into EBITA as growth returns. And with that in mind, let's now move on to Slide 16, which contains our cash flow and balance sheet remarks. First, balance sheet, our underlying free cash flow for the quarter stood at minus EUR 98 million. We typically have the most seasonal negative working capital movements in this quarter such as VAT, wage taxes, commissions and prepayments. In addition, in particular, in Q1 this quarter, we had a delay in invoicing at the beginning of the quarter associated with the Netherlands following the implementation of the new regulatory framework of about EUR 40 million to EUR 50 million. This will obviously normalize now into Q2, and we expect the same cash trajectory for the full year. DSO came in at 57.4 days, up 0.7 days sequentially and reflecting exactly the mix and the delay in invoicing. Net debt decreased EUR 131 million year-over-year, and our leverage ratio stands now at 1.5. And that brings me to the outlook on Slide 17. So looking at the current momentum, we see the positive volume trends in February and March, continuing to April, and that gives us confidence for the months ahead. Now remember, Sander highlighted, we have seen no direct impact from the Middle East, but we remain vigilant. Gross margin in Q2 is expected to be slightly down sequentially, reflecting the normal seasonal step up into volume higher clients, but also the lowest working day quarter of the year. And we continue to still see as we enter ongoing reluctance in hiring or permanent hiring by clients and talent. On the other hand, operating expenses are expected to increase slightly quarter-over-quarter, but always again, with strict operational discipline. So to summarize, by sustaining our growth momentum, continue to drive productivity from how we run our business and structurally reducing the cost to support it, we are inherently building operational leverage into Randstad. And that concludes our prepared remarks, and we look forward now to take our questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Andy Grobler from BNPP.

Just the first one on the Netherlands, which was much stronger than it had been. And you talked about Zorgwerk impacting that. But I guess, Zorgwerk is relatively small. Can you just talk through the maths of what has changed and how much of that is due to Zorgwerk? How much of it is the rest of the business, please? And I have one follow-up. Just one. I'll go with that one, but I'll follow up later.

Okay. Well, a good question, Andy. Let me -- I'm going to first say that I think the team in the Netherlands has done an outstanding job in engaging with the clients and managing this -- through this whole situation. So that's phenomenal. We said it was manageable, and it turned out to be manageable. So I think that's very good. So I'm going to ask Jorge to say a few more words about the economics of all this.

Yes. So I would say, Andy, at a very high level, probably the, let's say, step-up from Q4 into Q1, and in this particular in the Netherlands, I'd expect about half of it being connected to the good performance of Zorgwerk health care, I mean, it's not a small company to be clear. And that has also to do, of course, that now this makes part of our organic growth rate. So that's -- as we annualize basically the acquisition of this and the remaining 50% has to do with strong performance in e-commerce and logistics and in general legislation as well, now including the support into Q1. Follow-up question, Andy?

Just on a slightly different topic, given the rate environment, what are your expectations for finance costs through the remainder of the year, please?

Finance costs . Interesting.

To basically continue down. I mean you can see -- we can see we start the year with already a lower [ FIF ] into the year, and we continue to expect trending net debt down year-over-year, especially towards the second half of the year, as we always have the positive side of operating working capital.

Okay. So that Q1 number is -- we can expect similar levels through the remainder of the year?

Yes. We can expect similar numbers throughout the remaining of the year. Yes.

The next question comes from Remi Grenu from Morgan Stanley. .

Yes, my question would be on the momentum productivity, you're tagging that April was in line with March and I guess with the minus 2.4% in January and your organic growth through the quarter. It probably means that the current run rate is north of 1% organic growth in the later part in terms of exit rate in April. So if you could confirm that? And trying to think about how to how to think about the better momentum that you've experienced in the business and the potential negative from the environment. I'm trying to understand what's your -- what's the base case you're working on internally? Would it be like continued improvement in temp and maybe a little bit of weakness in permanent recruitment? Just a discussion around that, that better..

Thanks, Remi. So first of all, I mean, let me talk about the momentum. I think probably the most important comment is what Sander mentioned in the beginning. The step-up is broader. So it's across -- I think practically all markets have shown a better momentum, if not perhaps Belgium being the exception. The rest all our markets have stepped up. And that -- yes, that sustains our belief, okay. We made a step up. Two, you also see PMIs having improved significantly through -- atleast having been positive in most markets during Q1. So it is, let's say, something that we look at confidence, okay, what is at the basis of IT, at the core of it. If I look in the quarter, indeed, you will remember when we talked about January, we -- our exit rate was approximately minus 0.4% in January. We had a step-up in February, but I think I'll prefer given the amount of working days and the holidays between 2 months, then you should take step, let's say, Feb and March together. And that will probably bring you, let's say, between 0.5% to 1% as an exit rate. Remember, we say April productivities are in line. We are continuing to take that into Q2. There are adverse comp effects, but we also had them in Q1. So for now, basically, we just take it as it comes, but it gives us confidence into Q2.

Okay. And just to follow up, the discussion on temp versus perm for the outlook. I mean we've heard some of your competitors being a little bit more cautious on permanent recruitment for the next few months. Is it something that you're looking at as well? And any insight from discussion with clients on that side?

Remi, what you probably have at the moment, if you look at the actual absolute amounts invoiced, they are quite stable. What you see is the critical roles are being replaced. When clients will have more confidence and talent to start changing jobs or organizing work with more permanent jobs, we don't know. We also have in the U.S. some green shoots in terms of permanent recruitment, perm. EU is still very weak. Now what I would argue is it's also a context where typically uncertainty will play out for any seasonal work to be primarily absorbed now by more temp or flexible solutions. And that's what we see at the moment.

The next question comes from Rory McKenzie from UBS.

It's Rory here. I wanted to ask about the digital marketplace, which you said did 1.45 million shifts in Q1. I just want to ask a lot more about the context for that number. So how much -- how many shifts did your business deliver in total in the quarter? And also just what kind of shifts are shifting to this marketplace? Is it more short-term one-off covers or are customers using the DMP to change how they staff entire businesses? And also, can you talk about is it changing your impact on the market in terms of new clients? Or is this about wallet share?

Yes. Very good questions, Rory. Let me sort of start from the top. Obviously, this is all about making sure that Randstad supplies or delivers what we call immediate talent availability. We -- I always say to the teams, we need to have the talent already there before the client even knows they need it. So that's one. You can only do that with digital technologies. And that means that in our operational business and our biggest example is, of course, in the U.S. in operational, but we also have marketplaces in health care, in France, in the Netherlands, in Australia. In operational, we are starting or have started in a number of countries, think Canada, also Australia, Japan. So this is becoming a widespread phenomenon and an integral part of our strategy as Randstad. So -- and why do we -- why do clients like this? Our clients like this because they get what they need. So the fulfillment is higher. It's easy to do business with. In some clients, we are directly connected to their operational system. So the shifts that they cannot fill, they put immediately onto the marketplace. Those shifts are filled within minutes or hours. Generally, 50% to 60% of the shifts is filled within 1 hour, which gives the client confidence that the people will show up. Another benefit for the client is because people have selected those shifts themselves, the no-show rates have basically gone in half, so have reduced by 50%. So there's all goodness in there for the client. For the talent, there's also goodness in there because talent can now decide when and where they work is one. They can do that at the moment as they like, and that's typically in the evening. They don't have to call one of our consultants to talk to that. They can decide by themselves. So again, the no-show rates increase. So this is clear benefits for clients and talents. Then all those benefits also add up to benefits for Randstad. Higher fill rate is more business. No shows reduced is more business. Fulfill rate up is happier clients, fill rate up is happier talent. Of course, efficiency productivity because there is no human intervention, client types in their own shift, talent selects their own shift. That means 0 marginal cost if there's more demand, meaning ramp-up is a lot easier because we have the talent there. The client decides that they need 10 or 20 people more the next day we put the shifts on the marketplace, it all works. And I'm absolutely convinced that our growth rate in U.S. operational this quarter is driven in part by the fact that we have a digital marketplace because when the market ramps up, you need to be quick. If you have the talent already there, and it's just a matter of filling shifts through the digital marketplace, it's all good. In terms of what does this mean for our business? So we have 15% of our business now on digital marketplaces, roughly EUR 4 billion. EUR 3 billion of that, you have to think about EUR 3 billion of that is operational and EUR 1 billion of that is in our professional space in Randstad Digital in North America. This year is going to be a year of rollout, so where we start in a number of new markets. I mentioned a few of them already. So that next year, we can scale. So by the end of the year, we're looking at 22% of our business through digital marketplaces. And last but not least, the excitement that this is creating within Randstad is quite phenomenal because our people see that they are differentiated in the marketplace. We have more and more clients saying, we want to do business with Randstad, because you have the digital marketplace. That's easy for us, but it also means it is access to talent because talent lives in the digital world, not in a branch or somewhere else. So it's exciting for our people because we have something new. We have something exciting. We're differentiated, and it works very well. So you can guess I'm really excited about all of this and cannot go fast enough as far as I'm concerned.

Yes. That's a lot of detail and just one follow-up, if I can. It maybe to link this DMP to what you talked about on Slide 8. where you talked about AI in the world of work at a broad level, but maybe not about how AI could reshape the channel of connecting labor demand and supply. Do you think and do you hear that clients are engaging with maybe lots of different digital marketplaces for types of labor or channels? And what do you think happens to the kind of landscape of that labor supply as a result?

Yes, that's a good question. If you add up, Rory, the market share of all digital native companies combined in our space, the numbers that I've seen, they have a combined market share of around 5%, and that's the likes of professional marketplaces, freelance marketplaces and, let's say, operational marketplaces for your waiter or for your nurse. So the digital phenomenon in our industry is still relatively small. And that means there's a massive opportunity for us at Randstad to scale and to take share over time, because not all players will be able to implement a digital marketplace at the scale where we can. First of all, because it's hard work. But secondly, you meet the expertise. But secondly, it's also big investments. And we are fortunate enough to have a strong balance sheet so we can afford those investments. So it's going to be an interesting time in terms of digitizing the industry.

The next question comes from Simon LeChipre from Jefferies.

Let's take the next one.

Can you hear me?

We were looking for you, but we couldn't hear you.

Sorry. First question on the gross margin for temp. I was a bit surprised to see the performance getting incrementally worse despite the better top line. So can you give us a bit more color on the different moving parts? And what does that mean about the drivers of this better top line?

Thank you, Simon. So I think -- I mean, we had spent some time on Q4. We had already highlighted that we should look basically at the 2 quarters, Q4 and Q1 together. So we actually think our -- let's say, gross margin came in well right in the middle of our expectations and the temp margin as well. So I would say in Q4, we had 40 basis points. If you remember, in Q1, we now have 60. We said it was impacted by incidental items last year between Q4 '24 and Q1 '25. So I will take the underlying run between both about approximately 40 basis points. So -- and the good thing is it came within our expectations, and we now see it basically things stabilizing and many of these movements starting to annualize as we go into the later quarters of the year.

Okay. And a follow-up on Netherlands and obviously, quite a step-up in top line, but it seems like the drop-through was quite weak with margin declining year-on-year. So can you give us the details behind this performance, please?

Yes. If you look at the 4.4%, that's probably quite the run rate also comparing to the last quarters. I just told as well that we had last year incidentals that were particularly in the Netherlands associated with sickness and now basically, we started normalizing for higher sickness rates over the last 2 to 3 years. So I think if we take that into account, I think things are pretty stable in the Netherlands and definitely even [ although ] versus Q4 is slightly up.

The next question comes from Simon Van Oppen.

Could you give us a little bit more color on your working capital in Q1? We saw free cash flow was a negative EUR 100 million versus EUR 60 million last year. And we understand that H1 is usually seasonally light in terms of cash inflow as staffing companies tend to absorb working capital as they grow. But we noticed that DSO increased year-on-year to 57.4 days versus 55 days last year, which is quite a step up, especially since one might assume you're dealing with broadly similar country mix effects as peers who seem to manage to bring DSO down while growing faster. Any thoughts on what's behind the difference would be helpful.

Thanks, Simon. So first of all, I mean, indeed, I mean, the fact that it is negative, I think it's been like EUR 218 million to EUR 219 million to probably [ EUR 220 million to EUR 224 million. ] So it is -- the Q1 is always a quarter heavily impacted by working capital typically investments. And that has to do, as I mentioned earlier on, with all wage taxes payments, VAT, but also commissions, bonus payouts and even especially as we have a lot of software licenses, prepayment of a lot of licenses. So that is the normal, let's say, impact. What we did have this year is we had a higher, let's say, a delay on invoicing in the Netherlands. So that especially compared to last year, takes an impact. In January, we were late by approximately EUR 40 million, EUR 50 million in invoicing, and that spills over into next quarter. That has to do with the implementation here in the Netherlands of the new CLA legislation that is sold. So basically, it will normalize now as we go into the year. And then if you ask compared to last year as well, you will remember, we had a quite, let's say, low free cash flow generation in Q4 2024. That came primarily because the week -- the end of the year had finished in the weekend. So we've got a lot of, let's say, payments that were late paid into the first days of January last year. So that plays a little bit the comparison versus last year. I think in terms of trajectory for cash, we remain unchanged throughout the year. Now comparing to our competitors, look, DSO is not an established metric. So everyone is their own definition. At the same time, I think what we do see is, of course, our divergence in mix is quite significant. So yes, if we have Italy and Spain outgrowing and growing more than the market, we will play a role in our DSO. But I mean, we see our overdues continuing to decrease. We see credit losses even at historical low moment. So to be honest, I'm quite confident on the DSO -- on the cash trajectory.

The next question comes from Marc Zwartsenburg from ING. .

I would like to ask a question about the margin, regional margins, a couple of regions. So first of all, the Netherlands, you just explained a bit that there is a bit of normalization with sickness rates and that the margin has been lower. But on the other hand, we also have the new regulation in place with better pricing, and we have software doing really well. So maybe a few thoughts on how we should look at the margin going forward for the Netherlands. And if I look then to Region North America, yes, with also weaker enterprise, and the benefits from the digital marketplace, should we expect at some point that you will see quite some positive operational leverage in North America? And then 2 other regions, France and Italy, they are growing very fast, but we don't see a drop-through thing. Maybe explain a bit why that is?

Yes. So first of all, -- if I had a short answer -- good to speak to you, Mark, if I had a short answer, I'll say, yes. So it will be the short one. And what I mean by this is, clearly, I mean, we don't optimize for a quarter. There were a few timing events this quarter. Now as we go from the lowest seasonal quarter of the year into the higher seasonal quarters, Q2, Q3, it's very clear. Countries where we are growing, we're going to deliver operational gearing. That's basically what we can see happening from both, let's say, productivity that Sander alluded to before, plus everything else we've been doing in reducing structural costs. So I'm quite confident, let's say, that we're going to be delivering gearing in the countries where we have growth. On the ones where we're not, we're working hard to basically keep on improving, making them more agile, more resilient and making sure that they may also make a step up. So from that perspective is the short answer. In the Netherlands, I want to be a little bit clear. The regulation, I mean, from a gross margin perspective, might be dilutive as well. So I wouldn't call it -- I mean, there is a lot of additional costs that have to be passed [ through ] That's the end impact in our margin but let's say, the first pressure will be a dilutive pressure in margin. Now we've also been adjusting our cost base in the Netherlands. You saw the one-offs this quarter primarily related to the Netherlands. So we are also starting to see about how to basically step up in profitability. But for now, I would say this level of profit is as going 4% to 5%.

Yes. And in Italy and Spain, where you're growing so far, what you...

Good point.

So we don't see really operational leverage there.

Yes, I'll say watch this space. So again, I told you there were some timing issues this quarter. In Italy, in particular, we've been investing. We also been -- we had an important marketing campaign this quarter in completing Q1 associated with the Olympics. We've also been investing in our, let's say, the rollout of our platform that Sander just has been describing. In Spain, we can see we continue to add head count year-over-year. So we've been investing and we continue to grow ahead of markets. I'm quite confident these countries will be showing operational gearing throughout the year.

That's very clear. And in U.S., is there any benefit at some point that we should see from the marketplace?

U.S., I think the marketplace has some investments, but as we progress into Q2, the same. Partially, there was an impact on enterprise. We started the year somewhat subdued. Again, we talked about -- Sander talked about pipeline. We talked about client implementations. All in all, if I look ahead, it's about also showing operational gearing.

The next question comes from James Rowland Clark from Barclays.

Two questions, please. On the marketplace that you're just discussing, do you think that's resulting in any new client conversations at this point or simply just better client conversations, more engagement? And then also on a similar topic, can you provide any color as to the profit line benefit from the marketplace at this point in Q1, maybe on an annualized basis, if possible? And then my second question is just on the gross margin that you sort of suggested should ease through the year. I'm just curious as to how you think that plays out because it looks like the lower margin regions in the temp business are set to continue to outperform the higher-margin regions. So just interested in your thoughts there and what it needs -- what you need to see in order for that mix effect to ease substantially?

Thank you very much, James. On the marketplaces, that's absolutely driving new client conversations. And in fact, I'm personally out there with [ Mickey Chen ] and our commercial team in North America to have those client conversations with some of the big logistics companies, some of the big service companies in catering, et cetera. So -- and they all are interested in hearing about what we call the digital talent supply chain because these clients generally are very much into digitization of their business, of their logistics, of their procurement, of their sales to clients, but the talent supply chain is sort of somewhat behind in terms of digitization, and that's what we offer. That means we talked about it, higher fulfillment, but also a lot more transparency, compliance and I would say, analytics and optimization opportunities in that workforce. So yes, benefits at the high level, and I'll ask Jorge to say a bit more detail, benefits at a high level, higher productivity because we have more employees working per FTE in Randstad. That's definitely one of the major benefits. The other benefit is higher fulfillment because higher fulfillment sooner means more business tomorrow. That's pretty much how that works. I think overall, it's hard to tell at this particular point in time. I will tell you that is a work in progress, and we are -- the team here is working hard on getting more insights into that because we want to start sketching the picture of the new asset, including the economics over the next couple of quarters.

Yes. So James, just putting some numbers to it. I mean you see our fill rate has been, let's say, increasing 1%. This makes a difference in revenue. So it sustains more revenue growth. Our [ EWs per ] FTE, I talked about it at the beginning on my opening, but they are probably now up 6% to 7% year-over-year. We're now starting to prevalidate a lot of, let's say, the talent to talent centers, meaning when our talent advisers need talent, they are faster with clients. There's one point Sander highlight as well that I would like to highlight, if you actually spend time with the teams, redeployment because the beauty of self -- let's say, if you are in the Randstad family and you choose your next shift, your next appointment, your next job, then a lot of the redeployment we consider we have less setup costs in making, let's say, that transition from job to job, which also enables clients to plan better and organize themselves better. So overall, supportive and especially now as we move into the more, yes, seasonally rich quarters.

Let me break down a little bit because I think it's connected to the question of Simon, your second question, so on the margin. So if I look ahead, we finished Q1, we just talked about it with the temp margin down approximately 60 basis points or delta 80. If we look ahead, we're probably looking more as we can see, 50 basis points year-over-year in Q2. That will mean still 30 to 30 basis points down in Q2. Now remember -- or year-over-year, but remember, it is a seasonal quarter. So clearly, more volume clients trading. It's also a smaller quarter in terms of working days. But I mean, if I compare it to Q1, where I would say it's probably about 45 basis points plus 15 FX. The other impact here is we start analyzing FX. So this should now start stabilizing at 30 to 40 basis points. We still expect 10 basis points negative from HRS. So the volume in RPO is still weak. I mean, not strangely if you look at what's happening in perm, though we are counting on some new clients being activated as well, so to be seen. And perm remains -- I mean, for now, we have 10 basis points, but remains a bit of the wildcard in the equation. So overall, let's say, from the 80 today, we're now looking at 50. And then as we continue throughout the year, what is also obviously some of the bigger shifts we talked about, geographic shifts, client shifts, yes, this basically start annualizing. So basically start reducing throughout the year.

Our next question comes from Virginia Montorsi from Bank of America.

Just a quick one. Is there anything worth flagging in the quarter that has either surprised you or performed in a way that you didn't expect that you think it's worth keeping in mind? Or did everything kind of play out according to your expectations if we think about beginning of the year to where we are now?

Yes. I'm thinking deeply Virginia, it's a good question, but I'm afraid the answer is no. No. Let's say, we set out -- we said there was going to be a step-up in the quarter in last call, and that's what's happened. Of course, you have always a put and a take here and there, but nothing major to report here.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Konrad Zomer from ABN AMRO, ODDO BHF.

A question on your productivity. You've made good progress over the last few quarters, and you're on the verge of actually capturing some operating leverage again. How much revenue growth do you think you could potentially achieve in the second half of this year if you were to decide to keep your headcount stable? Is that 1% or 2% or maybe 5%, particularly given what you are doing with AI and your digital marketplace?

Konrad, good to speak to you. I'll say, first of all, I mean, second half of the year, you know the 6-week rule. First and foremost, I think we feel confident with the capacity we have now to support already the seasonal next big quarter, which is Q2. So I mean, we don't expect FTE investments to cope with that. And even in terms of investments that we make are more surgical about growth segments where we say we are clearly missing out opportunity if we don't invest in. Looking into Q2, we're quite comfortable in terms of capacity. Now Q3 and Q4 typically hang around the level. I mean, it depends. If growth really accelerates, we may need to look at it. Now what I have basically been saying for a few quarters is if I look at where we are ahead, we're deploying our strategy, both, let's say, on ability to structurally quarter after quarter, adding up another quarter of recovery ratio. So accumulated always 4 quarters close to 60%, 70%. That plays out in decline, but I also clearly see it playing out in scalability and growth. So basically counting on now much more scalability and gearing as we come back to growth.

Thank you. And with that, I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Sander van't Noordende, for any closing remarks. Mr. Sander van't Noordende, go ahead.

Thank you, Barton, and thank you all for joining the call today. And as we wrap up the call, I mean, our people are doing a fantastic job day in, day out, and I would like to thank our more than 600,000 talent and Randstad team members for their hard work as they are truly the best team in the industry. Thank you. .