Permanent placement grew at Robert Half for the first time in six quarters, and the operating line swung to a $62m loss
Two lines in Robert Half's second-quarter release point in opposite directions, and the smaller one is the more useful. Revenue was $1,336.4m against $1,369.7m a year earlier, a decline of 2 percent as reported and 3 percent once the company strips out billing days and currency. That is the eighth consecutive quarterly decline. Underneath it, permanent placement revenue rose to $118.0m from $114.7m, up 2.9 percent as reported and 2.5 percent adjusted, and the company's own disclosure shows that is the first year-over-year increase in any of the six quarters it publishes.
The series is the story. On the adjusted global measure, total contract talent solutions ran at minus 11.8 percent, minus 11.1, minus 10.9, minus 9.0 and minus 6.8 percent across the five quarters from the start of 2025, and came in at minus 2.1 percent in the quarter just reported. Contract technology placement turned positive at 2.3 percent. Finance and accounting, the largest single line at $551.7m of revenue, improved to minus 1.3 percent from minus 10.7 percent at the trough a year ago. Administrative and customer support remains the weakest at minus 6.9 percent.
The reported profit line is harder to read, and the company explains why. Robert Half reported an operating loss of $62.3m for the quarter, against operating income of $1.5m a year earlier. The reconciliation attributes the whole of the gap to accounting for employee deferred compensation: $100.9m of income on investments held in those trusts is reported below the operating line, while the corresponding increase in what the company owes its employees is charged to operating costs. A year ago the same item was $57.7m. Adjusted for it, operating income was $38.6m against $59.2m, and the company notes the treatment has no effect on income before taxes.
Net income was $26.3m, or $0.26 a share, against $41.0m and $0.41 a year earlier.
Protiviti, the consulting business, is where the quarter actually deteriorated. Revenue fell 4.9 percent to $471.0m, and adjusted operating income fell to $9.9m from $32.5m, taking the adjusted operating margin to 2.1 percent from 6.6 percent. That is a steeper fall than anything on the staffing side of the house. The company repurchased no shares on the open market in the first half of the year, against 1.1 million shares in the same period of 2025, and cash stood at $324.7m against $380.5m a year earlier.
