Kelly Services Q2 Results: Earnings Miss, Margin Pressure, Lower Sales & More

Kelly Services, Inc. KELYA reported Q2 revenues of $1.217 billion, missing the analyst consensus of $1.24 billion. Revenues fell 3.9% year over year. 

Adjusted EPS of $0.36 missed the street view of $0.40.

Year-over-year revenue trends were impacted by the sale of Russian operations in July 2022.

Gross profit fell 8.3% Y/Y to $240.6 million, with gross margins of 19.8%, slumping 90 bps Y/Y due primarily to lower permanent placement fees as customer full-time hiring decelerates.

Kelly reported Q2 earnings from operations of $6.2 million, lower than $8.2 million a year ago.

KELYA exited the quarter with cash and equivalents worth $134.5 million.

"Our Education segment and higher-margin outcome-based solutions in P&I continued to deliver year-over-year growth, while lower demand for temporary and permanent placement services impacted results in our P&I and SET segments," said Peter Quigley, president and chief executive officer.

On August 9, KELYA's board of directors declared a dividend of $0.075 per share, payable on September 6, 2023, to shareholders of record on August 23, 2023.

Outlook: The company expects its comprehensive business transformation program to drive meaningful improvement in EBITDA margin beginning in the second half of 2023.

Assuming the benefit of a full year of its transformation-related savings and no change in current top-line expectations, KELYA would expect to achieve a normalized, adjusted EBITDA margin of 3.3% to 3.5% exiting FY23.

Price Action: KELYA shares are trading lower by 3.34% to $17.67 on the last check Thursday.