Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the HireQuest, Inc. Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, John Nesbett, IMS Investor Relations. John, the floor is yours.

Thank you. I'd like to welcome everyone to the call. Hosting the call today are HireQuest's CEO, Rick Hermanns; and Chief Financial Officer, Steve Crane. Let's take a moment to read the safe harbor statement. This conference call contains forward-looking statements as defined within Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. These forward-looking statements and terms such as anticipate, expect, intend, may, will, should or other comparable terms involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the future. These statements include statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of HireQuest and members of its management as well as the assumptions on which such statements are based. Prospective investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, involve risks and uncertainties, including those described in HireQuest's periodic reports filed with the SEC, and that actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements. Except as required by federal securities law, HireQuest undertakes no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect changed conditions. I would now like to turn the call over to the Chief Executive Officer of HireQuest, Rick Hermanns. Please go ahead, Rick.

Good afternoon. Our second quarter of 2024 was characterized by sustained profitability as we continue to mitigate costs, leverage our unique franchising model and execute on our business strategy. We are focused on driving enhanced results as the market for staffing solution slowly recovers from what has been a particularly difficult environment for the industry overall. Despite these headwinds, HireQuest has performed well compared to its peers. We believe that we are beginning to see a leveling out of this downward trend on the daily pay and commercial staffing side of our business as year-over-year declines have lessened compared to recent quarters. HireQuest Direct, in particular, generated franchise royalties that exceeded Q2 '23 levels, and system-wide sales were only just a little bit below last year. We're not where we'd like to be, but we're noticing some encouraging trends that suggest that the market is finally beginning to find a baseline. We continued to prioritize expense reduction in the quarter as well, reducing our SG&A by 6% to $5.3 million compared to $5.6 million in the second quarter of 2023. Core SG&A, which excludes workers' comp, the MRINetwork ad fund and nonrecurring charges, declined 7.6% to $4.6 million. Workers' compensation expense, in particular, decreased by $143,000 in the quarter as the changes we made earlier this year begin to flow through. Our SG&A in the latter half of 2023 was impacted by negative development of our '22/'23 workers' comp policy year. And at this point, we do not see anything that would suggest that our workers' comp will reach those levels this year. As always, M&A is a key part of our growth strategy. Our track record of acquisitions includes numerous businesses that have allowed us to penetrate both new geographic regions and staffing verticals, significantly expanding our addressable market.…

Thank you, Rick, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. Total revenue for the second quarter of 2024 was $8.7 million compared to $9 million in the same quarter last year, which is a decrease of 3.4%. Our total revenue is made up of 2 components: franchise royalties, which is very much our primary source of revenue; and service revenue, which is generated from certain services and interest charge to our franchisees as well as other miscellaneous revenue. Franchise royalties for the second quarter were $8.2 million compared to $8.7 million for the same quarter last year. Underlying the royalties are system-wide sales, which are not part of our revenue, but are helpful contextual performance indicator. System-wide sales reflect sales at all offices, including those classified as discontinued. System-wide sales for the second quarter were $146.1 million compared to $157 million for the same period in 2023. Service revenue was $479,000 for the second quarter compared to $245,000 for the same quarter a year ago. Service revenue is composed of interest charge to our franchisees on overdue accounts receivable, service fees, other miscellaneous revenue and MRI Network's advertising fund revenue. Service revenue can fluctuate from quarter-to-quarter based on a number of factors, including growth in system-wide sales, changes in accounts receivable, insurance renewals and similar dynamics. SG&A expenses for the second quarter were $5.3 million compared to $5.6 million in the prior year period, a decrease of 6%. In the second quarter, workers' compensation expense was approximately $547,000, a decrease of approximately $143,000 from $690,000 in the second quarter of 2023. Generally, workers' compensation expense or benefit will fluctuate based on several different factors. Also included in our SG&A were salaries and benefits, which continues to be the largest component of our operating expenses. In the second…

Thank you, Steve. I'd like to thank our employees and franchisees for their hard work and dedication in this past quarter, and we look forward to generating value for our stakeholders as we progress into the latter half of 2024. With that, we can now open the line to questions. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question is coming from Kevin Steinke of Barrington Research.

Well, I wanted to talk about your comments about an improving staffing market. You mentioned a slow recovery, but yes, I'm assuming that you saw some recovery in the second quarter. I'm just trying to get a feel for what you've seen in the market, thus far, through the first 5, 6 weeks of the third quarter. .

Yes, I would definitely -- throughout the second quarter, there was an improvement. There was definitely an improvement, particularly in year-over-year comparisons. That trend towards sort of an improvement has continued into the third quarter. So we're -- we've actually had a couple of weeks where we've actually exceeded the prior year, which is we hadn't seen that in more than a year. So that's why we're cautiously optimistic now, obviously, sort of the market stumble here the last couple of weeks, if there's -- if that ends up translating into the real economy, well, then we're knocked off track again. But again, we've definitely seen an improving trend.

Okay. Great. And you mentioned HireQuest Direct actually being up year-over-year in the second quarter. Are there any particular occupational categories,that you maybe have drilled down into that, that are driving that improvement? And is it kind of across the board? Just wondering what you're seeing in that piece of the business.

So -- and that's a good question. So we've -- it's more geographic than it is, let's say, job category. But it is construction. Our strongest offices are those that are construction-related. We've had a recovery in a couple of markets, where we had a few down quarters that are definitely regaining their stride. And we were battling a couple of comparisons where we had some good-sized selling clients that had fallen off and that they've started to be replaced by new business. So it's not necessarily the old clients having come back, but there are new ones stepping -- sort of stepping up and filling in. So again, we're cautiously optimistic about Q3. But -- and going back to your original question, I would -- definitely, it's construction. That's the best for us.

Okay. That's helpful. So the part of the business that you called out is still facing some meaningful headwinds, MRI, Executive Search. Have you seen any stabilization in that part of the business or green shoots? Just wondering if -- what's your feeling about that business you're seeing as we move into the second half year.

So I would say there are 2 different factors that are involved. One, as stated in our prepared remarks, and really going back to what we had put out in December of '22 when we acquired MRI, MRI was losing offices and franchisees for a number of years. And so part of the downward trend is related simply to the organization, the number of units itself. The remaining offices were then, obviously, subjected to what is clearly a bad environment for Executive Search. As far as green shoots, it definitely was better in Q2 than it was in Q3, let's say, if you exclude the effect of offices that had left the system. That said, it's still significantly more challenging than the staffing. Literally, staffing has come back to being, at least for our offices, have come back to a point where we're effectively flat, whereas the Executive Search still has a somewhat -- a less downward trend, but a downward trend, nonetheless.

Okay. And now within MRI, they have -- I think they have a meaningful portion in terms of IT placement and technology. I have heard some comments that there might be some signs of stabilization or recovery in that market. I don't know if that's something you might have seen.

Yes. That's a great question. And so yes, there's been a little bit, but not as, let's say, as good as the as in other segments. It's really been a mixed -- but it's really been a mixed bag as well. I think that there's you can't just point to, let's say, the financial sector and say those MRI offices are doing well and the others aren't. This again, a lot of those go to many of our MRI offices are very focused on sort of specific, not even just specific industries, but even, let's say, categories within that industry. And so they don't move in predictable fashion. And so I can't just sit there and say health care has done well and tech has done poorly or vice versa. It truly is all over the board. I can give you a better answer, but that's the truth.

Okay. Yes. Fair enough. Looking at the core SG&A expenses, $4.6 million in the second quarter. That's down from $4.9 million in the first quarter, I believe. I think you might have talked last quarter about some actions you had taken I'm just trying to get a sense of if you taken some cost out in terms of the core SG&A and 4.6% is more of a run rate for the second half?

Yes. I mean, we've definitely taken some steps. There were -- even when we were doing the last earnings call, there were already several cuts that had already been made that clearly hadn't worked through -- worked their way through the income statement. And so the 4.6%, as far as for the core SG&A, there's really nothing there's nothing to drive that up at this point that would be predictable. I mean, sometimes bills for large expenses come in at weird times. But if anything, there's probably even a bit more downward pressure on it versus upward pressure. We're really being careful with our costs.

Okay. That's helpful. Lastly, I just wanted to ask about the M&A environment. I think you mentioned you're seeing increased opportunities given some of the recent pressures on the staffing industry. Maybe you could just speak to the pipeline and valuation expectations by sellers, et cetera.

So the deals are out there. There are opportunities like they always exist, but there are more, at least in our experience, there are more. They're still not necessarily at valuations that we think are appropriate for this environment. And so we're still working on sort of matching what we're willing to offer with what's being expected. But the deals are out there. It's -- and we've gotten close, and we've ended up with in on a few of them, but we're still actively engaged. And obviously, though, prices are still certainly better now than what they were 1.5 years ago. So we think we're getting closer to that point, where we'll be able to execute on some of them. And -- but again, we're always looking at that. Now I say that it might be a year, it might be 2 years before we hit something. I know there's no promise in that whatsoever, but again, the deals are out there.

[Operator Instructions] Okay. I'm not seeing any further questions come into the queue. So I will now hand back over to the management team for any closing remarks.

Well, again, I want to thank everybody for joining us on this call. We look forward to the second half of the year, which I probably really wouldn't have been able to say at this point last year. And so we are cautiously optimistic. Again, we thank you for your continued interest in the company and confidence in the company, and we just look forward again to speaking with you again in a quarter. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. This now concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.