Prior to the market on November 14th, BOSS Direct Hiring (NASDAQ: BZ, HK: 2076) released its financial report for the third quarter of 2023. In this quarter, the company achieved a revenue of 1.607 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 36.3%; After calculation, cash receipts amounted to 1.636 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 32.1%, exceeding the upper limit of revenue guidance.
This quarter, the company's operational efficiency and stability continued to improve. During the reporting period, the company's net profit was 426 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 101.1%. Excluding other income such as financial management, the company's adjusted operating profit was 549 million yuan.
During this period, the penetration rate of BOSS direct recruitment in blue collar jobs and lower tier cities continued to increase. The average monthly active user count (MAU) during the reporting period reached 44.6 million, a year-on-year increase of 37.7%; As of September 30, 2023, the number of paying enterprises reached 4.9 million, a year-on-year increase of 32.4%.
Based on long-term confidence in performance growth, BOSS Direct Hiring announced that it will conduct its first dividend payout after going public. The funds for this dividend payout will come from the company's surplus. The dividend amount is $0.09 per ordinary share, or $0.18 per American Depositary Stock (ADS), approximately $80 million, and is expected to be distributed in mid to late December 2023.
Zhao Peng, the founder, chairman, and CEO of BOSS, said, "The company is pleased to continue to bring value to users, employees, and investors. The company will continue to do its job well, continuously invest in production and research, and improve its ability to serve users and competitiveness
Blue collar and increased market penetration in lower tier cities
In the third quarter, the number of active users on the platform's job search and recruitment platforms showed a steady growth trend.
During the quarter, the company added nearly 12 million new and improved users, with an average monthly active user count (MAU) of 44.6 million. As of the end of the quarter, the number of paid enterprises in the 12 months reached 4.9 million.
From the perspective of job categories, blue collar workers have become an important engine driving the growth of platform users. Both in terms of job growth on the recruitment end and the number of active job seekers, blue collar workers are leading the market.
From the recruitment perspective, the service industry is leading in job growth, and its proportion in the platform has continued to expand since the beginning of this year. There has been a significant increase in demand for job categories related to offline physical consumption, such as waiters, shop assistants/salespeople, and chefs. The growth rate of supply chain logistics positions is significant, with express delivery personnel, freight drivers, warehouse administrators, and delivery personnel showing the most prominent growth rates. From an industry perspective, there has been a significant month on month increase in recruitment for consumer goods, automotive aftermarket, new energy, internet lifestyle services, and raw materials related to mechanical manufacturing.
In terms of job seekers, blue collar workers have also maintained a high proportion of new job seekers since the beginning of this year. More and more blue collar job seekers in the market are becoming BOSS direct hires. Traditional manufacturing hubs such as Dongguan, Suzhou, and Foshan rank among the top in the platform for active job seekers in production and manufacturing.
From a regional perspective, BOSS direct recruitment continues to accelerate its popularity in lower tier cities. The number of positions and job seekers from second tier and below cities maintained a high growth rate in the third quarter. Cities such as Anyang in Henan, Changzhi in Shanxi, Xiaogan in Hubei, and Baoji in Shaanxi still exhibit high levels of dual end growth despite having a considerable number of positions and job seekers.
By the end of the third quarter, as far south as Sansha in Hainan and north as the Greater Khingan Mountains in Heilongjiang, there were interactions between recruiters and job seekers on BOSS direct recruitment.
Stable improvement of user stickiness
Against the backdrop of continuous growth of active users, the user stickiness of BOSS direct recruitment has also maintained a high level.
In the third quarter, the average proportion of DAU (daily active users) to MAU (monthly active users) remained stable. During the reporting period, 135 million people on the platform received rewards last month.
It is worth mentioning that against the backdrop of a large number of new blue collar job seekers this year, blue collar job seekers in the third quarter still maintained a steady growth in indicators such as the number of successful candidates and per capita achievement.
While monthly active users continued to grow and user stickiness remained stable, the direct sales and marketing expenses of BOSS in the third quarter were 457 million yuan, accounting for 28% of revenue. This also means that the compound interest value brought about by the accumulation of platform brand effects is constantly emerging, and the marginal cost of the company's customer acquisition is decreasing, promoting the improvement of operational efficiency.
Production and research optimization of user service quality
In the face of a larger number of hierarchical and more complex sub categories and regions, BOSS direct recruitment still ensures high-quality matching accuracy and efficiency, with continuous research and investment, constantly polishing details day by day.
The third quarter is the peak season for autumn recruitment, and a considerable number of student users have entered the platform. Multiple targeted optimizations have been made on the product. Firstly, support students to fill out more intentions and broaden their potential employment opportunities. At the same time, guide students to fill in key information that recruiters are concerned about, including valuable skills and expertise, academic research experience, etc. The 'Aung Yang Autumn Recruitment Festival' collaborates with various industries' Star Promoters' to provide live Q&A broadcasts for students, answer questions 24/7, and recommend positions. Ten Star Promoters are on duty every day to answer questions, and 4000 positions are recommended every week.
The supply and demand situation for blue collar users varies among different types of work. For positions with relatively fast growth in demand and scarce job seekers such as welders, electricians, lathe workers, mechanics, and air conditioners, the algorithm team found a group of job seekers who met the employment conditions but did not "express" relevant intentions through a demand detection system, promoting bilateral matching and improving the harvest of recruitment and job seekers.
In response to the increasing attention to part-time positions since the beginning of this year, the production and research team has explored potential demand for part-time positions on the recruitment end through data analysis, optimized the experience of releasing part-time positions on products, and jointly increased job supply. On the job search side, targeted adjustments are made to the recommendation strategies based on the preferences of job seekers in part-time situations. Since the beginning of this year, the number of part-time positions and the achievement of intentions have maintained a high growth rate.
Ms. Wang, 42 years old and with a college degree, has found nearly 20 part-time jobs through BOSS direct employment. She has worked as a wedding dress organizer, cake maker, baker, and also worked as a fitter. Ms. Wang's feelings about products are: high efficiency, many bosses are quick to respond; The company is formal and the communication is quite open.
Maintain scientific research investment in the basic field of vocational science
In early September, the BOSS directly hired postdoctoral research workstation held a unveiling ceremony, which was the first approved postdoctoral research workstation in China's online recruitment field. The workstation adopts a joint training model with a postdoctoral mobile station, and the first university cooperation unit is Tsinghua University's Wudaokou School of Finance. Both parties will combine the accumulation of BOSS direct employment in vocational science, as well as the profound accumulation of Wudaokou Financial College in the field of labor market economics, to carry out exchanges and practices in postdoctoral talent cultivation, integration of industry, academia, and research innovation.
BOSS Direct Employment Vocational Science Laboratory (CSL) has made some progress in personalized recommendation systems, career path optimization, and cognitive diagnosis of talent abilities. Multiple achievements have been published in important academic journals and conferences in the fields of data mining and information retrieval, such as ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS), IEEE ICDM-2023, and ACM CIKM-2023.
In addition, two articles by CSL in the areas of fresh student mobility intentions and labor market concentration were accepted by the European Association of Labor Economists at its annual meeting EALE-2023 and invited to attend the meeting for academic presentations. This is also the first appearance of Chinese online recruitment companies at top international academic conferences in related fields.
Ensuring job security
In the third quarter of 2023, the security team continued to improve the application of technology in risk monitoring, reporting and complaint scenarios, and faster detection and disposal of suspected risk accounts.
In addition, BOSS directly hired and cooperated with the police to provide 49 criminal clues, captured 853 illegal suspect, and destroyed 18 criminal dens.
The "Job Fidelity" project "Conch Selection" targeting blue collar users covered over 14 million job seekers in the third quarter. In some traditional offline markets where there is a risk of fraud, such as production manufacturing and supply chain logistics, the reporting rate of job seekers has dropped to a new low in "Conch Selection".