Business
Randstad N : Q3 2025 transcripts
Randstad N : Q3 2025
About this update from Randstad Nv
Sander van 't Noordende: Good morning, everybody. I'm here with Jorge and our Investor Relations team to share our Q3 results. It has been a special quarter as we celebrated Randstad's 65-year anniversary. This milestone is a celebration of our enduring commitment to shaping the world of work and to be a true Partner For Talent, providing clients with the talent they need to succeed….. and finding talent the jobs and careers they are looking for. We have been very focused on executing our Partner For Talent strategy and I am pleased to report that our delivery excellence and Digital First progress, combined with commercial and operational discipline, has led to a good set of results. The market environment in Q3 was in many ways similar to what we saw in Q2. We remain in a stagnant job market. We see more resilience in temp, while, as expected, the professional and perm markets remained challenging. From a geographical perspective, we see diverging trends with ongoing recovery in North America and Southern Europe, and sustained momentum in APAC. Conditions in Northern Europe remain challenging and we expect this environment to persist for the remainder of the year. Against this backdrop we delivered solid results. We achieved revenues of € 5.8 billion and an EBITA of € 191 million, with a margin of 3.3%. Looking forward, we continue to see stabilization, most notably in North America and Southern Europe, with temp more resilient than perm. On the other hand major northwestern European countries face ongoing uncertainty in the wake of various domestic challenges. I am proud of the discipline we have shown in our execution in Q3 with good progress in our Operational and Enterprise specializations. From a commercial point of view: we have grown activity in Randstad Operational, we have had some good client wins in Enterprise and Digital, and….professional job flow is back at pre-summer levels. As I said, we've been very focused on executing our strategy, and I want to share some meaningful progress that shows things are coming together at scale… The main milestone this quarter is clearly Randstad Digital in the US. We went live with our Torc Digital Market Place with a talent community of now over 1 million IT specialists. We have transformed our business from the classic, linear and recruiter dependent, model into one that is community centric, high velocity and AI powered. This does not only result in a better experience for clients and talent but also in enhanced productivity. With this move, we immediately add another €1.3 billion in annualized revenue flowing through our Digital Marketplaces. A second area where we are making great progress through our digital marketplaces is our Healthcare growth segment. In the Netherlands, Zorgwerk successfully navigated the transition from Freelance to Temp, driving strong double-digit growth. We've expanded our Appel Medical app in France with self-scheduling empowering Talent even more As mentioned last quarter we've gone live for healthcare in Belgium and in the first months talent takeup was enormous with 50% of shifts filled within 1 hour of which 30% within 10 minutes! And, we are making strides in Australia with now over 40.000 self scheduled shifts This growth segment is now generating over €800 million annually revenue through Digital Marketplaces. Lastly, I am pleased with the transformation of our Randstad Operational business in the US. As I said before, it is not just the launch of the Digital Market Place, it is the business model. Leveraging the power of digital first in combination with talent and delivery centers, gives a better experience for talent in terms of flexibility and speed and for clients in terms of fulfillment and quality of talent. Also, it allows us to spend more time with clients because of a higher productivity in delivery. Finally we run our business at a higher clock speed. As an example we now have our supply-demand balance by zipcode and by role at our fingertips, allowing us to take immediate action where needed. And the good thing is that all of this is already contributing to growth and profitability. These transformations are taking the way we run the business to a next level with a higher velocity, more data and more precision. We are setting up a new base camp if you will. And the great thing is, it's all powered by next-generation AI embedded in our Digital Market Places. Combined, our Digital Marketplaces are now generating approximately €4 billion in annualized revenues, which is 15% of our total business. To conclude, we are executing well in fragile markets. We are operating our business with rigor and discipline and at the same time delivering on our Partner For Talent Strategy, with, of course, the best team in the industry. Jorge, over to you. Jorge Vazquez: Thank you, Sander, and Good Morning, everyone. Let me start by bringing where we left it last time, overall, the stabilization we highlighted the whole year and in Q2 continued into Q3. We increased our workforce by over 10,000 employees in Q3 sequentially, compared to last year's increase of 4,000 employees. Despite an adverse foreign exchange impact, we generate more revenue sequentially as well. At the same time, while clients and caution are favoring flexibility, the actual hiring confidence remained extremely low and our permanent placements felt that impact. Overall, as the decline rates eased, our focus on operational efficiency, combined with a leaner cost structure, allowed us to protect profitability and further deleverage. In North America, we continue to see good strategic and financial progress this quarter, with growth and profitability improving across all specializations. In the US, our operational business grew 1% and continues to perform ahead of the market as we have now implemented our new Way of Working. Let me remind you that this is not only the marketplace, it's the central delivery for our clients and talents, it's optimizing roles and responsibilities around specialization and immediate talent availability and our accom footprint. Through digital first and more harmonized ways of working we continue to generate productivity gains and are able to remove structural costs, operating a leaner structure. The professional solutions and permanent hiring showed some signs of stabilization at a low level, declining by 11% and 18% respectively as hiring confidence is still low. Digital grew 2% and we celebrated the roll out of the marketplace. Enterprise was -5%, broadly stable sequentially. In Canada, we also saw good underlying improvement and returned to growth in the quarter. The EBITA margin for North America came in at 4.6%, up 100 basis points year-over-year, a solid step up towards a structurally higher operating leverage under the new model. Moving on to Northern Europe on slide 9. Especially here, we continue to navigate challenging markets. Temp is clearly more resilient than Perm but it is too early to call the bottom: still fragile and slow paced. We see underlying demand stable facing tougher comparables, with early cyclical pockets continuing to improve, while Professionals and Perm are trailing. In the Netherlands, growth was more or less stable at a low level, -6%. We are responding well to market circumstances. Auto Supply Chain, hiring freeze across professionals in Government as well as incoming legislation-impact are pressuring short term sentiment. On the other hand, we are activating new clients and winning in the healthcare market, where Zorgwerk is a major winning player. We remain laser focused, the team is adapting well to these circumstances and we were able to protect profitability. Germany saw stable QoQ movement as decline rates remained at -7%, we see the labor market environment challenging and unchanged. Our efforts are paying off. We are back to profitability and we structurally improved the business. The teams have done very well. Belgium virtually unchanged, a slight decline combined with good adaptability. Operational is growing +2%, reflecting improvement in the industrial segment. Like in other countries, Professional remains challenging. As mentioned in May during our CMD, good strategic progress. The healthcare marketplace is received well and by putting the decision making in hands of the talent, talent immediately selects shifts (50% filled in the first hour) and minimizes talent not showing up. We saw Other Northern European sub-regions back to growth with Poland (+12%) and Switzerland (+7%) leading the pack, while Nordics remained subdued (-17%). Profitability is almost in line with group average, becoming good contributors and diversifying. Moving on to the segment Southern Europe, UK and LATAM on slide 10. In France it is a story of two tales. On one hand, we see decline rates easing and continue to see resilience in our industrial pockets. Operational was down -3% year-on-year, but sequentially stable. On the other hand, ongoing political uncertainty puts pressure on hiring confidence, something we see weighing, again, on our perm business. Professional - albeit still negative - stepped up to -8% from -18% in the previous quarter, as we are currently starting to annualize the Healthcare legislation impact. Digital trades in line with the France Group. Despite the decline, good operational discipline and a leaner structure enabled us to achieve an EBITA margin of 4.0%. Italy continues to grow for 6 quarters in a row now. Operational was solid, +4%, while we are continuing to diversify our portfolio in growth segments such as Digital and Healthcare. Profitability came at 5.1%, reflecting key strategic investments as we are getting ready for the Randstad talent platform. Iberia remains a key performing market, growing 7%. Spain grew strongly at +8%. We see the payoff of our investments in growth segments and will keep doing so with many opportunities still to grow further. Portugal is also returning to growth! Furthermore, revenue and profit performance were mixed across other southern European countries, the UK, and Latin America. The UK labour market showed some signs of stabilization- albeit at a low level, -8% with Perm still very weak (-21%). In Latin America we still see growth but the growing uncertainty in Argentina is weighing in. Moving on to Asia Pacific on slide 11. Japan again demonstrated solid growth, +6%, combined with strong profitability. Japan is one of the countries that operate talent centers at scale, supporting solid growth in our operational business. Digital continues to do well and we are ideally positioned to support clients and talent in a candidate scarce market. Australia and New Zealand have good adaptability while market conditions remain subdued. India grew double digits and we continue to invest in growth segments here. Overall, the EBITA margin for APAC was at 4.3% in the third quarter, showing good execution while investing in growth. That concludes the performance of our key geographies. Let me now walk you through our combined financial performance on slide 13. From a specialisation point of view, building on the progression of the last few quarters, Operational is now flat. Professional and digital remained stable while Enterprise saw growth in Q3. We continue to implement the new wins from early in the year and in this quarter we won over 40 deals accounting for more than EUR 300 million. Once again our gross profit and OPEX were well aligned, but more about that later. The quarter's EBITA margin was 3.3%, similar profitability margin as last year. Underlying EBITA was 191m euros, very close in absolute terms, in reality the difference being the adverse FX impact. Now let me unpack the items until net income. Integration costs and one-offs In Q3 amounted to 38mln. This quarter this was mostly related to harnessing the weak environment in North / Western Europe, as we continue to drive structural cost reduction. In the Amortisation and impairment of intangible assets, nothing relevant, regular accounting treatment of the purchase price allocation of the acquisition of Zorgwerk. - Net finance costs - just the regular interest payment. The effective tax rate for the first 9 months was 30%, within our guidance of 29 to 31%. Adjusted Net income was 120M. With that, let's continue and look at our Gross Margin bridge on slide 14. A few things about Margin. Remember, like for like we need to remove 40bps from the divestment of Monster in HRS, as we partly deconsolidated it last year September - so overall 70bps down YoY like for like. Temp margin is down 50bps YoY, broadly similar to the decline in Q2 and Q1. The Key driver remains mix. Incremental demand coming primarily from Enterprise clients Operational more resilient versus Professionals and Digital specializations; Geographical divergence, with Northern Europe still stubbornly challenging and Southern Europe continuing to do better Adverse FX in 2025 Perm contribution was down 20bps, decelerating even further despite annualizing steep declines as key perm markets remain challenging. In HRS/Other, flat excl. Monster. RPO remains robust, growing 3% as we are finding new ways to revenue, in mid market, new clients, and new activities. This is the market at the moment, and overall we were able to offset a large part of these moving parts if not all in our results. Our underlying operating expenses came in at € 878M Euro, down sequentially 34mln organically, resulting in 5% year of year decrease of Xm. Operating discipline and focus on talent service models resulted once more in field productivity gains. Furthermore, we continue to drive structural indirect costs down, quarter after quarter. Linking it back to our CME, with these additional efforts in the first half of the year, we are now on track to deliver north of 100M Euro net structural savings for 2025. We have incurred restructuring charges once again this quarter, as we continue to address permanent efficiency gains in Northern Europe and France primarily. Remember the payback of these is lower than one year as we can already see in this quarter. Despite the overall headline number for OPEX, this includes selective growth segment investments in Japan, Italy, Spain, United States, Canada among others as well as keeping and raising slightly our strategic investments. Similar to Q1 and Q2, we have successfully maintained our EBITA margin year over year, resulting in a recovery ratio of over 70%. Overall, we continue to position Randstad for the future. With that in mind, let's move on to slide 16, which contains our Cash Flow and balance sheet remarks. Our free cash flow for the quarter was positive 244 million euros, reflecting seasonality and solid cash conversion. YTD, we currently have ~385m FCF, up 126mln versus LY. DSO was 56.2 days, up 0.5 days sequentially. Here again, the very same client mix puts upward pressure, with most of the impact accounted by the larger clients. Our leverage ratio is 1.6x and coming down. We were pleased to see net debt decline 232m sequentially from what is the seasonal peak in Q2 . And that brings me to the outlook on slide 17. Let me start with the current momentum. Looking ahead, the overall mood remains cautious, in a way fragile and slow paced recovery, with mixed signals depending on the country. Volumes in early October are in line with the broader quarter. Underlying trends remain largely unchanged however with a more pronounced YoY FX effect. Looking at Gross margin, we expect gross margin to be stable to a notch higher QoQ balancing the seasonal of the holiday-and-idle impact versus strength of manufacturing and logistics associated with the end of the year. Sequentially, we anticipate a slight increase in operating expenses due to the reversal of Q3 seasonality, partially balanced out by the ongoing structural cost optimization. We expect at least a similar level of profitability in Q4 compared to Q3, broadly in line with the regular intra-year pattern. To summarise, let me wrap up: The market stabilization we saw in Q2 continued into Q3. We once again protected profitability, while funding growth and critical investments in our transformation. As Sander detailed, our focus on 'delivery excellence' and 'Digital First' is actively transforming our business model. We are delivering and building the future of Randstad: more specialized and differentiated, with higher operating leverage from a smarter, more efficient delivery and a continuously leaner cost structure supporting it. - That concludes our prepared remarks, and we look forward to taking your questions - Operator?! Q&A Q - Remi Grenu (Morgan Stanley): Morning, gentlemen. Sorry, I hope you can hear me okay. So my question would be a clarification on the outlook. So how should we think about your comments on stable activity in October? Does it mean that we should use the minus 1.2% organic growth in Q3 as a starting base for the upcoming quarter, given the current trading? And if so, I mean, what has changed versus the trend of gradual but consistent sequential improvement we've seen in the organic growth over the last few quarters? It feels to me like the comments are becoming a little bit more cautious on the outlook, especially on Europe. So just want to understand your view and your feeling today versus when you ended Q2 and what you're seeing in terms of outlook for volume of activity, whether it's discussions from clients or signals that you are getting from the market? Thanks. A - Sander van 't Noordende: Yes, so thank you, Remi, for that question. We were, of course, expecting it. I'll give the headlines and then I'll leave the fine print to Jorge, so to speak. I mean, by and large, what we're seeing, so we're still seeing a high level of uncertainty in the marketplace, politics, and geopolitics. We're also seeing AI and AI boom, if you will, that's definitely helping economic activity, particularly in the United States. At the same time, all of that still, and I mentioned it in my comments, results in a stagnant labor market. So there's not a lot of mobility, not a lot of hiring, not a lot of quitting. We have seen stabilizing demand, so that's good. So by and large, I would say the expectations are more of the same. There is no major catalyst up or down on the horizon now. As always, there will be puts and takes by geography, by industry, by specialization, the usual fluctuations in the business. I mean, over this quarter, we've seen good progress on temp, on operational, on digital in North America, in RPO in Spain, Japan, North America. So we have good nuggets in there. We also have big challenges and I would qualify -- I would summarize them as Northwest Europe and professional. Those are the two big ones that are still out there. Over to you Jorge. A - Jorge Vazquez: I'll just say because -- yes, just a fine print, as you called it. So, Remi, good morning. So, I'll say, if you look -- your question was does it change? No. So if you look at the starting point of October, I think it's fair to take, let's say, the quarter as a basis. Q3, probably that's why you might feel like Q3 is always volatile. It has included volatile summer months. September was between -/-1% and -/-2% but also remember we're facing more, let's say, difficult comparables as we go into Q4. So that's probably why there is a caution. But overall, pretty much the same unchanging trends. One overarching comment also for the questions to come. We now really are about fine, fine, fine print. I mean, the tone of the last quarters, and again, this quarter as we now look at Q4, is we are putting so much change in how we operate with discipline and a smart Randstad, removing structurally leaner - becoming a leaner company as well on how we support it, that we're looking at Q4 pretty much of an uptick, not in profitability, but again, protecting profitability as we've been doing in Q3 and Q2. Q - Remi Grenu (Morgan Stanley): Yes. And if I just may follow up on one of the things you said on Randstad Operational versus Professional, it seems like we see continued divergence between the two. I mean, earlier during this earning season, we heard Page flagging that they will stop working under their Page Personnel, which to me feels like it's the most Randstad professional, but correct me, if I'm wrong, and that closure of Page Personnel is on AI risk and disintermediation. So can you elaborate a little bit more on the weakness you are experiencing in that specialization on your growth and how the gross margin in that business has evolved since the mid to high 20s, you were flagging at the 2023 Capital Market Day, I think that was? A - Sander van 't Noordende: No. So from a demand point of view, as you note, Remi, it's professional that's challenging. I think making a clear link between AI and that trend is too early to call. My hunch and view is that given the uncertainty, clients are just very reluctant to hire. So, I think it's more of that than anything to do with AI. Even the biggest AI proponents and accelerators, the big tech companies, yes, they have fewer people, but it's 1% or 2%, maybe 3% here or there. It's too early to say that that's all AI. I think it's a bit of an excuse, a bit of a flag, so to speak, but I think it's the market, the market environment, the uncertainty, the hesitance to invest, the hesitance to invest in infrastructure, the hesitance to invest in teams and people. You had a few points more detailed on gross margin and stuff. I think Jorge will comment. A - Jorge Vazquez: Let me, again, the fine print, no. So I think, look, professionals, let's be clear as well, I mean, we can't celebrate we're still in decline, but we do celebrate that things have improved again and continue to progress from Q1 to Q2, Q2 to Q3. So let me be clear there. Our gross margin is stable, and what we do see, and I want to be clear, when we talk about growth segments and investments, is that many of these are within our Professional specialization. In the United States, in healthcare, in many areas, we continued to invest. So I wouldn't say -- it's too early. If anything, you see more resilience and more in line with the part where we are in the cycle on the operational specialization, and you see a behavior that is recognizable in professional, but more to do with confidence than necessarily anything else. Q - Simon Lechipre (Jefferies): Yes, good morning. On gross profit margin, I mean, looking at the performance of your temp business, minus 50 bps year-on-year, so it is weaker than Q2 despite volumes having been improving. I mean, do you see more competition in some markets, or is there some impact from the growth of your digital platform that would explain this? And if you can comment on what you expect for this -- for the temp gross profit margin in Q4, please. A - Jorge Vazquez: Yes. So let's be clear. So gross margin, this quarter in particular, there's two, three items, I think it's important to highlight, Simon. One is FX. I mean, you can see it from the tables that we disclosed. It's approximately EUR10 million -- EUR10 million to EUR13 million impact. That's just to put it into perspective, every EUR5 million, and now we also have to kind of really go into fine, fine, fine print. Every EUR5 million is 10 basis points. So you see the volatility that these things can have. So, FX played an impact. Perm indeed turned out to be even decelerating from already a very low level. On the temp side, I think actually we see trends that are pretty similar. It's the market we are operating in, both from a geographical perspective and a specialization/large enterprises trading more or up-trading more than smaller companies. The one thing perhaps that we also need to look at, and you can see it in the numbers, is in some way slightly more idle time than initially expected, but you also see us addressing that. So if you look at some of the one-offs, some of these have been taken on the gross profit cost of the service line, meaning that at least we are taking action in making sure that idle time remains within an acceptable level going forward. So looking into Q4, hardly any triggers changing in the market, so pretty much a stabilization and somewhat of a reverse of this seasonality impact. Q - Simon Lechipre (Jefferies): Okay. And can you comment on the competitive environment? I mean, do you see more competition in some markets? A - Jorge Vazquez: No, we see competition in markets as we've always seen, Simon. So no, not any different than Q2, Q1, 2024 or 2023 for the matter. We remain firm in terms of pricing, yes. Q - Suhasini Varanasi (Goldman Sachs): Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Just one on SG&A, please. You did have some slightly higher one-off costs below the line, and also SG&A came in better than expected in the quarter. Did you get the full benefit of the cost-saving measures in Q3, or is there more to come in Q4? A - Jorge Vazquez: Yes. So thanks, Suhasini. By the way, good morning. I mean, our OpEx, again, let's also not forget, and I want to be transparent. Our gross profit is impacted clearly by FX, but of course our OpEx as well, still organically significantly down. And as you rightly said, a large part of that, of course, is what we've been doing already in Q1 and Q2, removing, let's say, structurally eliminating costs and becoming a leaner Randstad. And that has a supportive impact of at least, I'll say, EUR15 million to EUR20 million already this quarter. And that will obviously -- that is permanent, so that will stay on as we progress through the year. But as we now address, still, let's say, primarily this quarter, Northern Europe and a little bit more in France, that will also support costs into Q4. The flip side of this is in Q3, we always have the seasonal impact of holidays. So it's going to be balancing one with the other as we go into Q4. Q - Rory McKenzie (UBS): Morning, all. It's Rory here. I want to ask about the cost base as well, please. Obviously for several quarters now we've seen the cost base reduced more than expected and restructuring charges higher than expected. And what should we expect for the restructuring charge in Q4? And then just zooming out, I think this is the smallest quarterly cost base you've had since 2016. So, what do you think about what that means for the shape of Randstad in future years and what are your thoughts about position in terms of spare capacity as we think about how you're ready for the next cycle? A - Jorge Vazquez: Yes. So I'll start and then Sander, if you want to complement anything. Look, Rory, we talked about the Capital Markets event at a very high level, Randstad is becoming a digital first, reorganizing around delivery excellence and our talent service models which has two big consequences on our cost base. One is, we become smarter, more efficient in doing our work and that is basically the power of largely either having digital or having things done at scale instead of a very fragmented place. So we're becoming smarter and more efficient in how we do our work. The second part is exactly because we digitize and harmonize much more, we can structurally reduce our supporting costs. And these two efforts continue to contribute quarter-after-quarter into what we see today in Q3. It is fair to say on your question, should we expect one-offs in Q4? I mean by definition, one-offs, we don't forecast them. At the same time, let me also be transparent. Yes, as we continue to roll out our talent platforms, as we continue to optimize how we work, this will mean that we'll find ways to basically make Randstad a leaner company. The advantage of this is that we enter 2026 much stronger and in the future, not only will we be more resilient, but we will significantly increase our earnings potential. Q - Rory McKenzie (UBS): Thanks. It feels like maybe another link between the ongoing, I guess, gross margin drop and reduction in SG&A is the changing mix of your demand, not just your model. It feels like structurally you've got more growth in large enterprise clients, low margin outsourcing. So does that reveal that clients are looking for just lower and lower cost channels for employment? A - Sander van 't Noordende: Well, I guess anyone is always looking for something more efficient, but what this reveals is the market at the moment and the demand there is at the moment, all the incremental demand comes primarily from large enterprises, pretty much in line with previous cycles. And as I always say, I use this expression, I mean, in many ways, a large part of our OpEx walks hand in hand with our gross margin or gross profit, because indeed, as you know, the geographical component of it, which is Southern European countries, typically have a lower margin, but also a higher conversion than some of our Northern European countries and even North America. But also on the client side, our large clients have a much more efficient cost to deliver than our traditional SME client base. So, yes, there's a component of that. But what I highlight is the structural change underlying going throughout in 2025. That's what really, really exciting me for 2026. Q - Simon Van Oppen (Kepler Cheuvreux): Good morning, Sander and Jorge. I have a question about France. You delivered quite an improvement in France sequentially in Q3 versus Q2 against the same comparators as last year. Can you talk a little bit more about the third quarter in France in terms of what end markets were performing well and about the quarter itself? Was it back-end loaded? And what was the exit rate in France going into Q4? Was it stable or sequentially improving? Thank you. A - Jorge Vazquez: Yes. So, Simon, we normally don't necessarily talk too much about exit rates in particular, but it was stable. So, let's put it like this. And again, France is a bit of a story, I think, of two tales, even geographically. I mean, Sander, you would just step in there. But even geographically, you see a very sharp difference between the western part of the country and the eastern part of the country. But overall, we see actually the market relatively stable, operational continuing to improve. I think if we continue to double click in that respect, Professionals for us has been a big step up. Obviously, we had this healthcare change in isolation last year. As you probably know, we have a very strong healthcare specialization in France. Now we start analyzing that. But also what I think is quite, let's say, remarkable in our French, excuse me, performance and more what it means for the future is some of the -- and as we discussed in Q1 and Q2, some of our one-offs and restructured charges had already been in France. And we now start seeing the benefit of that hitting our P&L in Q3. So, that makes it basically more resilient and the company better prepared for 2026. Q - Konrad Zomer (ABN AMRO - ODDO BHF): Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two, please. The first one, there's a general election coming up in the Netherlands next week, for the outlook of the Dutch staffing market. Do you think a left-wing or a right-wing government would be beneficial? And my second question, what's, in your view, the single most important argument why Randstad would be a net beneficiary of the AI trends in the labor market, as opposed to the risk of some disruption? Thank you. A - Sander van 't Noordende: Yes, Konrad, thank you very much for that question. Well, I've learned not to preempt any election around the globe, so I'm not going to do that this time around. We'll see what the outcome is, and we'll deal with that accordingly. I don't think there are major differences in terms of the labor market between the various parties. Yes, there are some nuances, but I think the direction is not going to change in a major way over the next couple of years, independent of the elections. Sorry. So why am I excited about AI? Sorry about that. If you take a step back, and you know, I'm a bit of a technology aficionado, and that's why I'm so proud about our digital marketplaces, and the fact that we now have 15% of our business running through those digital marketplaces. And on top of that, I graduated on AI in 1987. So I couldn't be more excited about AI finally seeing the light of day. And so we see it as a tremendous opportunity, because if we have our digital marketplaces, we will embed AI, and we are embedding AI, and it's already embedded in those digital marketplaces. To do what? To engage with talents, to find talents, to reach out to talents, to do skills assessments, to do interviews, to do onboarding. All of that is going to be part of our digital marketplaces. That's one thing. The other thing, of course, similarly with clients, when to reach out to clients, how to reach out to clients, et cetera. And then what I like to call the Randstad digital brain, and this is something focusing on supply-demand. I talked about the map in the U.S. We now know by zip code in the U.S. what our supply-demand situation is, so we can use AI to assess and to take action. So AI, let's say there couldn't be anyone more better positioned in this industry than Randstad to leverage AI, specifically because of our digital-first strategy. And the good thing is not everybody can win that game. A, we're leading. We're probably one of the biggest, if not the biggest, company in the digital marketplace space, in the platform space, and we will continue to scale. So we talked a lot about the U.S., we talked a lot about Belgium, we talked about the various businesses in healthcare. For next year, we have on the roll Canada, the U.K., Italy, France, and the Netherlands to launch digital marketplaces primarily in our operational business. So this is just the beginning of a major wave. Why will we be successful? A, we have the investment capacity. You know we have been investing in our business over the last couple of years. We will continue to do that at the same levels. We have to scale those marketplaces. We have the team to make it all happen. And last but not least, we have to wear it all to make it all happen and that is not the case for many players. So, I think we couldn't be better positioned to benefit from AI. And we will move at pace to get to those benefits. Q - Marc Zwartsenburg (ING): Yes, good morning, everybody. A couple of questions left. First, I want to come back to the OpEx line. We had a significant beat in Q3, partly driven then by FX, but your guidance therefore for Q4 you said is slightly higher due to seasonality. But yes, it is a bit difficult to call what seasonality was like a few years back. But based on what you're making, continuing to make progress on the rollout of the digital strategy, is it fair to say that maybe over Q4 will be again a better quarter than Q3? And maybe looking even more important out to '26, should we take the second half of this year in terms of the OpEx line as a bit of a starting base, like multiplying it by two to get to the '26 number? Or should we even assume vertical savings continuing to more than offset the price inflation that's currently going on and even have a lower OpEx line than the 2x the second half this year? That's my first question. Should we take them one by one? A - Jorge Vazquez: Yes. So first on Q3 to Q4, and then more on the esoteric question on 2026. On Q3 to Q4. So Marc, first of all, when we say seasonality, two important comments. One is, or one important comment, in Q3, we always have an impact from, let's say, holidays accounting and how we actually account for holidays throughout the year. So somewhat artificially, our Q3 OpEx gets a little bit of a tailwind from that respect. And we account EUR10 million to EUR15 million for that. That typically, of course, reverses in Q4. At the same time, yes, we continue to do structural cost savings as we just, again, did another restructure on top of just normal attrition and management of our cost-based operational discipline. So yes, those two things will basically balance. For now, we also highlighted, I mean, we enter into Q4 still investing in growth segments. We are, in many ways, continuing to roll out our transformation. So I think the best guidance we can give is stable to a notch higher. As we enter 2026, the mantra is pretty much the same. So as we continue to roll out delivery excellence on our talent platform and capture, let's say, benefits from doing things smarter, both on gaining productivity, but also eliminating continuously, structurally, our cost base. We said it before, the path to achieve that is clear. This will not only build resilience, but it will build a significantly more profitable Randstad in a growth environment. As for the modeling, or the more like specific question for 2026, I think that your rationale is logic. We'll continue to update anything as we progress in Q4, yes. And the second question was, Marc? Q - Marc Zwartsenburg (ING): So, yes, just going back on your last remark. So my reasoning is rational to take the second half as a starting point, and then add a little bit of expectations into 2026. This is how we should look at it? A - Jorge Vazquez: Yes, yes, yes. That's what we mean by eliminating and making Randstad a leaner company, yes. A - Sander van 't Noordende: Sorry, Marc, some comments. So we're going to be focused, of course, in '26 on growth. Despite, let's say, more of the same in the market. So our growth will be, I call it our own growth, better fulfillment through delivery excellence, investing in growth segments, speedier fulfillment through our digital marketplaces. All of that will have a positive impact on our top line, if you will. Q - Marc Zwartsenburg (ING): Yes, yes. No, clear. Thank you for that. And then focusing on the U.S., your margin did see, let's say, 1 percentage point improvement year-on-year, and also quarter-on-quarter, you see the progress. And that totally fits into the digital marketplace strategy. And if you then look at the top line performance, it's slightly better than in Q2 in terms of growth, but only slightly. Is that because the market is simply a little bit weaker? To be fair, maybe a little bit more market share gains. A - Jorge Vazquez: Yes. We find ourselves, I mean, ahead of the market. I think the market hasn't changed. If you do look at things, Sander does not like when we highlight this, but if you look, we have significantly higher tough comparables in Q3 and Q4. Logistics picked up significantly last year already in Q3 and Q4. So, I think, if anything, from a percentage perspective, that's the only thing that you see that perhaps might ever be comparable. But the rest doesn't change. We continue to be ahead of the market, and we continue to roll out our digital marketplace there. Q - Marc Zwartsenburg (ING): Yes, so you addressed the AI side for runs of the benefits. They're obviously clear. But what about the supply side? How do you see that, the repetitive jobs, particularly maybe in the accounting, consulting area that are maybe disappearing because of AI? And of course, there will be new jobs created, but it always takes a few years to get there. How do you see that part of the AI impact? A - Sander van 't Noordende: Yes, so Marc, I was talking to a client the other day in the U.S., and he told me 15 years ago there were 1 million people in the U.S. in tollbooths. They're not there anymore because we all have these digital vignettes today. Yet the unemployment is at historically low levels. It has ticked up a little bit everywhere, but it's still low. So, I guess, what I'm saying is we are AI optimists, and the world needs a productivity boost, which is good. Also, if you look at some of the research primarily by the World Economic Forum, they say AI will drive the creation of 170 million new jobs, anticipating a net growth of 78 million new jobs. So, I think history tells us, and the issue there, Marc, is always it's easier to say, okay, that task or that job might disappear. It's a little bit more difficult to say what the new jobs are that will arise. But rest assured, we will be there where the new jobs will arise to help our clients find the talent they need. That's our job. And then one more point, maybe in the shorter term, I think the lack of hiring or the low hiring levels these days is more driven by the overall uncertainty in the market than by AI itself. We have the big tech companies, they have fewer jobs left and right, but it's 1% or 2% or 3%, it's not meaningful. And for the rest, everything you read is, yes, AI is great and it's here to stay and it's relevant. But scaling AI, that's yet another thing that will take a bit more time. So in summary, we're optimists and we will skate, as we always say, where the puck is going to be. A - Sander van 't Noordende: Yes, thank you very much, Elba, for your facilitations. And thanks to all on the call for your questions. Thanks to the team here for doing a good job again this quarter. And a final thank you, of course, to our more than 600,000 talent and Randstad team members for their hard work as truly the best team in the industry.