ManpowerGroup Inc. (NYSE:MAN) Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call January 31, 2023 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Jonas Prising - Chairman, Chief Executive Officer

Jack McGinnis - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Andrew Steinerman - JP Morgan

Jeff Silber - BMO Capital Markets

Ronan Kennedy - Barclays

Mark Marcon - Baird

Kartik Mehta - Northcoast Research

Jasper Bibb - Truist Securities

George Tong - Goldman Sachs

Heather Balsky - Bank of America

Operator

Welcome to ManpowerGroup’s fourth quarter earnings results conference call.

At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode until the Q&A session of today’s conference. This call will be recorded. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time.

Now I’ll turn the call over to ManpowerGroup Chairman and CEO, Jonas Prising. Sir, you may begin.

Jonas Prising

Welcome to the fourth quarter conference call for 2022. Our Chief Financial Officer, Jack McGinnis is with me today, and for your convenience, we have included our prepared remarks within the Investor Relations section of our website at manpowergroup.com.

I’ll start by going through some of the highlights of the quarter, then Jack will go through the fourth quarter results and guidance for the first quarter of 2023. I will then share some concluding thoughts before we start our Q&A session.

Jack will now cover the Safe Harbor language.

Jack McGinnis

Good morning everyone. This conference call includes forward-looking statements, including statements concerning economic and geopolitical uncertainty which are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties. These statements are based on management’s current expectations or beliefs. Actual results might differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. We assume no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements.

Slide 2 of our earnings release presentation further identifies forward-looking statements made in this call and factors that may cause our actual results to differ materially, and information regarding reconciliation of non-GAAP measures.

Jonas Prising

Thanks Jack.

Over the last three weeks, I spent time with our leadership teams across the world for our annual strategic road shows, as well as with clients in Europe before attending the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. From these conversations with our teams, our clients and global leaders, we get insights on the current environment and near term outlook. This complements our own real time business data on the current environment and forward-looking research.

The economic headwinds and increased caution by employers due to an uncertain economic outlook are resulting in softening hiring behaviors. We see this through extended recruiting and sales cycles and softer order flow with employers in certain sectors as they are exercising more caution in their demand for contingent and permanent recruitment of talent. That said, they are also focused on holding on to business critical talent while adding headcount for in demand skills, whether that is supply chain workers or highly skilled professional talent, and as a result, labor markets remain strong overall and we still see good order flow and opportunities in various markets and brands.