Welcome to PeopleIN Investor Fiscal Year 2023 Full Year Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star one on your telephone keypad. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Ross Thompson, CEO. Please go ahead.
Great. Thank you very much indeed, and welcome everyone, and thank you for joining Megan Just, our CFO, and I for PeopleIN FY 2023 results briefing. Before I get into the financials, just want to confirm our purpose: to inspire excellence in our people, both our internal staff, but also our external contractors. In FY 2023, over that twelve-month period, we provided employment to over 34,000 people, which is absolutely fantastic result for the business. But now into our results, and it's a privilege yet again, to present another record performance for PeopleIN as a result of our diverse talent offering and our reach into sustainable and defensive employment sectors. You know, we achieved a massive milestone of over AUD 1 billion in revenue, delivering AUD 1.19 billion, which was 73.9% up on last year and represented over 25% in organic growth.
Normalized EBITDA was up 29.5% on last year, with a result of AUD 61.1 million, which was over 8% in organic growth, which is absolutely outstanding. Because as a business, we did have some headwinds in FY 2023, particularly in the tech sector. We also made some further investment in the business, particularly in the health division. But as a result of the industrial division absolutely shooting the lights out, and really that's from their sector diversification, allowed us to deliver over 8% in organic growth, which is just outstanding. And that industrial performance that Tom and the business, you know, delivered was driven by access to more people. You know, we're a simple business.
We have more people in the market that we can provide employment to, whether that be backpackers through holiday visas, whether that be international students through studying visas, or whether that be through the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility Scheme. Access to more people then drove strong organic growth in the industrial business. Normalized NPATA was within consensus at AUD 37.6 million, which was up 17% on last year. And then on the cash conversion front, absolutely outstanding from the teams and the finance team as well. You know, that laser-like focus on cash collection and cash is key.
You know, delivering 116% conversion, you know, smashed our annual target of over 90% cash conversion, and it allowed us to really draw down that net debt to EBITDA ratio, which is now under 1, and really sets us up well going into financial year 2024. So bloody fantastic result, which is great. Now, on normalized EPS, grew by 14.5%, with EPS being AUD 0.37. And it's just great to see the business, you know, delivering or constantly delivering that double-digit EPS growth year-on-year. That consistency is phenomenal. And we're pleased to announce a final fully franked dividend of AUD 0.07, which is up just over 7% on last year. And it's really a testament to our strong cash collection, but also the confidence that we have going into the new financial year as well.
And then the last measure to call out, return on equity. You know, again, it's a plus 20% result for us, and, you know, we've been doing that for many years. So really solid result for the business. And again, highlights that consistency, you know, the leadership team, consistency of delivery and that proven track record. And this slide, you know, I love this slide. It's a great slide showing our performance over the past 6 years, and again, highlights that point around consistent delivery, whether it be the revenue front, where we've doubled, more than doubled our revenue over the past 2 years, EBITDA growth, strong growth through to this year, NPAT growth as well. And then the last graph there being earnings per share growth, you know, that compound annual growth rate of over 23%.
You know, I think we are who would be one of the leading businesses, particularly on the ASX and the small to medium cap space, delivering that level of earnings per share growth year on year. So now I'd like to hand over to Megan to go in through this slide in a wee bit more detail.
Thanks, Ross. So since listing, PeopleIN has demonstrated consistent and significant growth. Ross went through the percentages there for each of these graphs, have shown, and this year we reached the significant milestone of passing AUD 1 billion in revenue, an achievement that we're extremely proud of. It reinforces our strategy of diversification across industries and getting the right revenue mix between permanent and recruitment and contract labour hire. Our three vertical structure is deliberate to ensure that we weather any change in economic conditions and still provide strong returns to our shareholders. Revenue is up 74% to AUD 1.2 billion, and normalized EBITDA is up 30% to AUD 61 million. We've seen a demand in early learning, food services, construction, and transport infrastructure, all increasing over the year.
This has resulted in the industrial and specialist services vertical outgrowing the professional services and health community verticals. The overall EBITDA margin of the group is 5.15%, reflective of the increase in the industrial and specialist services hours, as this vertical has low margins and high volumes. Pleasingly, we remain above the industry average of approximately 3%, and additionally, we have seen a change in our revenue mix, with contractor revenue increasing from 90%-94% of revenue. We've also been able to increase hours with the utilization of international candidates because of improved visa processing times. We placed more than 6,200 new workers onshore during the financial year across all the verticals. Our Food Industry People brand was a strong contributor to the increase of onshoring workers.
With the improvement of onshoring nurses, we are optimistic that health vertical will increase hours in FY 2024. There's also been a focus on systems and process improvements in this vertical, which we're expecting to reap the rewards from in the new financial year. This will have the added benefit of improving our EBITDA margin overall at the group level. Both brands acquired in 2022, Perigon and FIP Group have delivered strong results during the year, exceeding our expectations at acquisition. This has been supported by synergies obtained from the integration into the broader group and the ability for them to leverage our cross-selling program during the year. NPATA is up 18% to AUD 37.6 million, despite increasing interest rates, increased utilization of the working capital facility during the year to support growth, and the full year impact of the acquisition loans.
Depreciation and amortization have also increased because of the newly acquired head office lease, growth in the Vision and Mobilise requiring motor vehicle and equipment investment, and the amortization of acquired intangibles. We have delivered exceptional cash flows from operations with normalized operating cash flows of AUD 56 million for the year. Our normalized net receipts from customers was AUD 71.3 million, compared to normalized EBITDA of AUD 61 million, resulting in 116.8% of our EBITDA being converted into operating cash flows. Normalized operating cash flows were AUD 56.1 million, compared to normalized NPATA of AUD 37.6 million, being a conversion rate of 149%. These results are well ahead of our expectations and can be attributed to strong collections in June, supported by AUD 14 million in collections on the last day of the year alone.
We have improved the aging of our debtors during the half, and we continue to drive improved processes in this area. Debtor days improved by a day to 31 days. We remain laser focused on debt collection, which includes client vetting prior to onboarding and methodical debt collection procedures. It remains a focus of both operational and finance staff collaboratively to ensure that we can maintain these exceptional collection statistics. We always target 90% EBITDA conversion, which assumes growth of 10%. So to grow 8% and achieve a conversion like this is impressive. Our results are supported by a strong balance sheet. Net debt increased at the end of last financial year with the acquisition of Food Industry People Group, and as a result of strong collections in June this year, we were able to significantly decrease debt by year-end.
With the earnings generated over the years, net debt to normalized EBITDA has reduced to 0.96 times. This is well under the risk appetite of the board and well within our current banking covenants. There has been an increase in capital expenditure this year. This spend has been on 3 main avenues, being lease fit-outs as part of the lease consolidation plan, the growth of the Vision Surveys Queensland business, and most significantly, being our Program Unite works. For the year, we've spent AUD 4 million on the Program Unite works and AUD 5 million on other capital expenditure, which includes AUD 1.2 million in office lease fit-outs and AUD 1.9 million on the Vision Surveys motor vehicles and equipment. The amalgamation of a number of brands in the head office of Brisbane has been a significant step forward for collaboration, culture, and cross-selling for our group...
Our investment into our systems and processes to continually improve our service delivery internally, has been a major focus over the past 12 months. This program of works will continue into the next financial year as we complete roll out across the entire group. Given the significant increase in spend on this program of works, we thought it prudent to provide a more holistic update, which is contained in the appendix. I'll now pass back to Ross to provide an update on market conditions and future outlook.
Great. Thanks very much, Megan, and as you heard from Megan, an outstanding result for the year, which is great to be able to report on that. But now, looking ahead, so the next couple of slides will address that and looking at FY 2024, but also looking further out over the next couple of years as well. And really important to go through this, given, you know, general business sentiment at the moment. And also there is an elevation there in the level of market uncertainty, particularly in the short term. However, for PeopleIN, and given how diverse we are and also the strength of our leadership team, then, you know, we still see a lot of opportunity in the short term, but also that opportunity just continuing to grow over the next couple of years as well.
So I'll go through this slide in a bit more detail. So starting with the graphs on the left-hand side and at the macro level, just looking at the unemployment rate. So as it stands today, at 3.7%, and if you look at any of the projections, they've put it at around about 4.5% over the next 18 months to 2 years, which is still good conditions for PeopleIN, you know, still a tight labour market. And to be honest, anything with a four in it, means there's more people that are after a job, so it gives us more supply that we can provide, talent that we can provide to our clients. And we saw that in FY 2023 with our industrial result.
You know, that was really driven because there was more people, there was more overseas people, particularly, coming into the market that we could provide employment for. But even if you look further afield than those projections, over the next 18 months to 2 years, out to 4.5, when we listed PeopleIN back in 2017, as you can see here, and it may be a wee bit small, so you might need eyes of a ninja, but, you know, it's over 5.5%, and we still, you know, generated solid earnings when we listed and over, you know, the subsequent years when it had a five in front of it. So at the macro level, good conditions for a talent solutions business like PeopleIN, and particularly a diverse talent solutions business.
Then going to the next graph on the left, wage price index. So as most of you are aware, our commercial model, in most cases, is actually a percentage of salary that it generates or builds up our fees. So if wages are increasing, then our net revenue is increasing, and that drives organic growth for us. So you can see out to 2024, then it's, you know, elevated above that 3% mark. So again, provides good conditions, bodes well for the business over the coming year. Then delving into a bit more detail in each of our three verticals, so that's the table. So starting with healthcare and community, and it's very well documented whether it be in the AFR, the Australian or other publications, that there is a global shortage of nurses.
There's a global shortage of healthcare workers, and that shortage is not gonna change anytime soon. So even the current demand is more about finding talent than our clients, you know, wanting to use our, our service. But then if you actually look out to 2026, you know, there's an additional 300,000 new roles coming into that health sector, and I think that's probably conservative as well, when you look at aging population, and you look at other macro drivers as well. So a lot of demand there. As one of the larger players in that space, you know, we are well set up to capture and capitalize on the, on that demand and that opportunity. Then going to our industrial business. You know, as I said before, we operate in a number of sectors, but I've just called out a couple here to highlight.
The first being education. For us, that's early learning through our Expect A Star brand. Again, like the health sector, well documented, that there's a shortage of early learning educators in that space. And as one of the larger players in that space, then we're well positioned to continue to support our clients to find early learning educators, whether that is through our partnership with TAFE Queensland, who are training early learning educators, and then we find employment for them, or whether that is looking overseas to bring in workers into the country to support that sector. The next sector to call out is food services, which has grown when you look at our sector split within the business, particularly after the acquisition of Food Industry People Group.
But again, highly defensive sector, you know, from a macro point of view, obviously tied to population growth, which is only going one way in Australia. So, you know, that exposure there, that increase in volume there, we are well positioned to be able to support our clients and meet the demand. And then construction, what does construction mean for us? It's really in the infrastructure space. So whether that be water infrastructure, whether that be transport infrastructure, whether that be renewable infrastructure or defense infrastructure, you know, that's the key areas that we are focused on and providing talent into those sectors, and mainly to the construction companies or directly to the government organizations as well. And that's not gonna go backwards.
You know, the amount of investment that is going into that space, whether it be in that transport infrastructure, you know, here in Queensland, with the Olympics, there's a lot of rail programs that are gonna come online before the Olympics, and they need people to deliver on those projects. Or if it's defense, you know, look at theDefence Strategic Review that came out a month or so ago, and that investment, particularly in the regions and North Australia, you know, we are well-positioned when you look at our geographic footprint, to be able to capitalize on that and make sure we're providing talent so that those investments can be built, to the time frames that have been set. Then professional services.
I've called out tech because of the challenges within FY 2023, but as you're aware, our professional services offering is broader than tech through the acquisition of Perigon who are providing resources into the finance space and sort of business, services, support space as well. But I've called out tech, I said, because of that challenge. And for us, you know, we're starting to see some green shoots there, and as we go into the second half of the year, we think that will really start to pick up. But then when we look broader than this financial year and out to 2026, then, you know, there is, well, as you can see in the table, over 200,000 new roles coming online.
Again, I probably think that's conservative, given the, the demand in the cyber space, and that's only increasing the demand in the AI space, but also in companies digitizing their own processes, like we are doing with, with Program Unite. So, you know, medium, longer term opportunities in there are massive, and again, we are well positioned to, to capture that opportunity. So now on, onto the last, last slide before we open up for questions on, on outlook. And as mentioned before, really important that we wanted to spend time going through this, given, you know, business sentiment, given that elevated level of, of uncertainty, but also given, you know, the opportunities that we have in front of us.
You know, I've just talked about low levels of unemployment, you know, solid wage inflation and that job creation that, you know, high demand sectors that we are tied to. You know, it just means that we're well positioned to continue to provide talent to those sectors, you know, which include healthcare, professional services, early learning for education, food services, mining, renewables, transport infrastructure. Also, given our service offering and the talent that we're providing to those clients, means we're not tied to one sector. You know, we can move talent around the sector and really follow the money, which is a massive mitigation measure that we have. So if we have a welder that might be providing services into the mining sector, you know, our ability to move that welder then into transport infrastructure projects is strong, and it's something that we've been doing for years.
You know, I've talked about the chef example before with the lockdowns in Sydney. You know, a number of those chefs then worked at mine sites over that period of lockdown. So the ability to move and follow the money into sectors is high for an organization like ours. And as we all know, there's always money somewhere. It's been able to find it and having that commercial focus to chase that dollar and deliver for our shareholders. Cross-selling, continued focus for us and looking at FY 2024, we're focused on that healthcare space and defense sector as well, and then continue to leverage our experience at scale international recruitment.
When we look at FY 2023, we brought in over 6,000 new international workers into Australia, which is, you know, a massive, massive result, and we'll look to ramp that up even further in FY 2024. We do see that as one of our key competitive advantages, 'cause as I said previously, you know, in a number of our sectors, it's all about finding the talent. The demand is there from our clients. You know, we expect the technology sector to start to recover in Q2 and really start hitting its straps in H2, and that's that ongoing demand for cyber, AI, so skill sets and project managers as well. Megan talked about our cash collection in detail, you know, absolutely outstanding for the business. You know, we'll continue that laser-like focus.
And again, you know, really sets us up well, having that strong cash position going into FY 2024. However, you know, in the event of weaker economic conditions, you know, we have a commercially focused and experienced leadership team, you know, that will navigate any potential downturn. We'll seek out revenue opportunities and deliver solid earnings above industry levels. You know, we definitely back ourselves against any of our competitors, and we've proven we can do this. You know, as I said, we've had some headwinds in FY 2023, but we're still delivering solid result for the year, and we will continue that laser-like commercial focus in FY 2024. So thank you very much indeed for your time, and now we'll open up for any questions.
Thank you. If you have a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from the line of Elijah Mayr with CLSA. Your line is open.
Thank you. Good morning, thanks for the question. Just firstly, on guidance and maybe just your thinking and how your expectations, I guess, changed throughout the half. I mean, if we rewind to the first half, I think you were expecting to land at the top end of the EBITDA guidance range, and then the guidance was kind of reaffirmed at the end of May. So what kind of changed versus your expectations over the last, well, last month of the financial year and early on to sort of drive down the EBITDA versus your expectations?
Yeah. So a year ago, we came out with guidance, and our default is not to give guidance, but we felt last year, you know, there was an opportunity to do that. Throughout AUD 62 million-AUD 66 million, we delivered AUD 61.1 million, so slightly down on that guidance. But from an EBITDA point of view, we are within that consensus range. And really, Elijah, this is on that tech side. So they had an outstanding Q1. So really and we're excited to see that slowdown in Q2. So then we obviously came out with our half-year results. Q3 was slow, and we have seen some pickup in Q4, but far slower than what we were expecting with our commentary there. So you know, that business delivered an FY 2022 of AUD 12 million.
You know, we bought the business, including the bolt-ons, for around AUD 6 million in EBITDA, so it's still delivering above the level that we acquired our tech business for, but clearly well off what it delivered in FY 2022. You know, that's market challenges. You know, we're still seeking out opportunities there, but as I said in the presentation, pretty well documented how challenging that fintech space has been. So I think we've delivered a solid result given the market headwinds there.
No problem. There's no guidance, I guess, this time around for FY 2024, but if you, I mean, look at the targets for the longer term, is that 10% sort of growth what you guys are achieving? I guess, given the slowing growth in Q4 and some of the margin compression across the segments in Q4-
Yeah.
Is that second half run rate, what we should be looking at, or any sort of more commentary you can provide on an FY 2024 basis?
Yeah, Elijah, and I've said, we'll stick with our default position over the years is not to give guidance, but what I will say around the H1, H2, there was the IT element, but also, you know, people business like ours is tied to revenue days. When you look at revenue days in half one versus revenue days in H2, it was around a 51-49 split. And then when you look at the revenue split between those two, it was actually 52-48. So there's an element of just the days to make money, and then there's the element from a tech point of view as well. So, you know, those things need to be taken into account when you're looking at a people business and, you know, what we can look to deliver this year.
As I said, you know, historically, you can look at our organic growth, et cetera, and what we've always pushed as a business internally, but from a guidance point of view, then we'll stick with our default position.
No problem. I'll jump back in the queue. Cheers.
Cheers, Elijah. Thanks, mate.
Your next question comes from the line of Ben Wilson with Wilsons Advisory. Your line is open.
Hey, Ben.
Thank you. Hi, Ross. How are you?
Yeah, good.
Thanks for the question. Just interested, I guess, in the EBITDA margin outlook for the health and community and professional services verticals, you know, in the first half of FY 2024. Understand sort of the reasons for, you know, the weakness in the second half, but I guess the health and community margin in particular dropped to 4.6%, which was a pretty substantial drop. So I guess, partly it relates to how quickly the flow of nurses from the U.K. can resume, and the like, but I guess just interested in whether we should expect a recovery and sort of the trajectory of that.
And then, sorry, just to round out that question, what a sort of steady state EBITDA margin for that vertical can be going forward? Thank you.
Yeah, thanks, Ben. I don't know where you're getting the 4 from. From my point of view, it's around. It was over 6.6%, but still, you know, less than that 8%-9% that we have delivered and target in that health and community space. So it's been-
Sorry, just the second half, Ross. Sorry. Second. Yeah.
Yeah. So, some investment has been made in that business. We have brought in a number of international workers. So when you look across, just FY 2023, it was over 900 international workers, which is great... What we didn't expect was, you know, a number of domestic workers, talent that have left the industry. I guess it's been a tough few years with COVID, et cetera. So those that we brought in to Australia, were actually just needing, you know, some that were retiring out of the industry for us. And also we saw a bit of a change in mix in that second half of the year, rather than on the registered nurses, it was more in sort of graduate nurses that were coming through, which is fantastic.
You know, we wanna support all health workers to find employment, but a lower margin comes with them. But to your question about looking ahead into FY 2024, then yes, we're expecting, you know, that margin to get closer to historical levels of margin. And, you know, we think there's a bit of stabilization there on that sort of domestic resources retiring. So, you know, with a ramp-up in that international nurses coming in, then we're expecting some growth from that division in the year, which will be good.
Thanks very much.
Cheers. Thanks, Ben.
Your next question comes from the line of Liam Schofield with Morgans Financial. Your line is open.
Morning, guys. Can you just, Ross, just touch on that sort of nurses onshoring numbers? I think in the presentation you commented on it. Can you talk about the sort of visa numbers or, or nurse numbers, where they sort of came from at the end of FY 2022, where you ended up, and maybe where you think they can get to in 2024?
Yeah, absolutely. And Liam, we've called out before that we've had pre-COVID was around that 1,200 number at any point in time. So in the year, we brought 350+ in the first half of the year. In the second half, we brought 545 in, so that's just over 900 nurses that, or international nurses, that we're providing employment to in the financial year. But we think we can get that back into that 1,200+ within the year in FY 2024. So given our You+Aus initiative, which I think I've talked about before, but that's a campaign to attract health workers from the U.K. and Ireland to Australia. So that's now been in the market over there since February.
We've had really good response from that, hence, you know, that 500 number in the second half of the year. But we don't think we've fully sort of realized, seen the real benefit from that. We'll see that in this second half, first half and then into the second half of this financial year. So I'd say 1,200 for this this year, and then that will continue to go from strength to strength.
Go on. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Kieran Wagner with Petra Capital. Your line is open.
Thank you. Good morning, Ross. Morning, Megan.
Morning, Ken.
Question. Yeah, good question. Well done on the cash collections. I'm just curious how we should think about that going forward. Do we expect some sort of reversion of that in 2024, or is the message that you've sort of rebased your debtor days? Can you just clarify that, please?
I'll pass you over to Megan for this one, Ken.
Yep.
Hi, Ken,
Hey, Megan.
So look, it was a phenomenal result, and the fact Friday, 30 June collections were massive. So that's why I called out that we had collections on that day of AUD 14 million. So look, I think replicating those kind of percentages will be challenging for us, but we'll always target to get to that 90% plus.
Yeah, okay. No, that's, that's fine. If I could just sneak in a, a second question. Just wondering, it's probably in there somewhere, but I just haven't found it, significant items in the result. Could you just outline what's in that and, the quantum of?
Sorry, could you repeat?
Below. I'll just after the significant items, sort of below the line. It looks like your normalized NPAT's about AUD 28 and reported NPAT's about AUD 20, I think.
Yeah.
So, what's in that significant, the difference in there? If that—I could ask about that?
Yeah. So the normalized that, you're wanting to ask to go through what the normalizations are around?
Yeah, if you could. Yep.
Yeah. Yeah. So there is a few restructuring costs in there around a few... So that was around the integration of FIP, majority of those.
Yep.
Oh, and then also we had a little thing called Impairment. So the strategic review, that would be a big number in there as well.
Right.
So that was about a-
And then, just our normal-
And then-
Normal normalization.
So around, performance rights is the other one.
Right. Okay. Sorry, Megan, you cut out at the crucial time. The strategic review number was how much?
Just under AUD 1 million.
Just under AUD 1 million, okay. And the FIP integration costs?
That was just under AUD 1 million as well.
Okay. Okay, thank you.
... Your next question comes from the line of Richard Cho with Storage Pty Limited. Your line is open.
Yes, this is probably a question for Megan as well. I'm just looking at the borrowings on the annual report, page 44, and in relation to the lease liabilities. Yeah, this year it seems like there were, you know, AUD 19 million in new leases, whereas the year before it was AUD 4.6 million on new leases, and on acquisition it was AUD 4.1. So there seems to be more, more than a doubling of the new leases. Is that mainly related to the properties, leases? And, can you just, you know, give a bit more explanation on the new leases?
Yeah. So the most significant one is head office that we did in December last year, so that would be reflective in the half year results as well. In this half, there has been a few smaller ones in Melbourne and Sydney. But the most significant is that.
Okay, and are you able to kind of estimate an annual cost of those, of that lease, those leases?
Um, so-
Yeah.
the actual payments, the cash?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm just trying to, yeah, ascertain how much cost that will be in terms of, yeah, on, on-
So that-
on the leases, on an annual basis.
Yeah. The cash payments is about AUD 6 million a year.
6 million. Okay. And do you expect that to increase or decrease, or stay around the same, in the amount of new leases going forward into FY 2024?
Obviously, head office was the most significant one for us.
Yeah.
So, we've pretty much done a lot of the consolidations that we were wanting. There's just one in Sydney that we're still working on, but apart from that, we're pretty much done. So, we expect those to stabilize now.
Okay. So you wouldn't expect a large increase in new leases for next year? Is that-
No, no.
Okay. Thanks, Megan.
Your next question is a follow-up from Liam Schofield with Morgans Financial. Your line is open.
You're only allowed one question, Liam.
Liam, your line may be on mute.
Sorry, it was one question at a time, isn't it, Ross?
You missed that.
Just very quickly on those underlying changes, the share-based payments, they increased from AUD 3.3 to, call it, AUD 5.3. Is there anything specifically driving that? And what does that look like, you know, going out, you know, 1, 2 more years?
It's gonna go down, Liam. So, last year, we rolled out a new program to further include further people within the group. And we've completed that rollout, and that is an opt-in scheme, so people have the ability to choose whether they participate in it. In the most recent months, we've seen a decrease in the participation in that.
I think just generally, Liam, with our REM, et cetera, and you know, what is tied to shares, you know, that will probably drive a decrease in that over the next couple of years as well, and actually even in FY 2024. But I'm keeping those share-based terms really to the executive leadership team under those annual long-term incentive bonus programs.
Gotcha. So just to clarify, you're saying keep it constant as a proportion or keep it constant in total dollars?
I would say from a dollar point of view, there will be on that and where we can on the on that number of AUD 5 million.
Good one. Thanks, guys.
Your next question comes from the line of Ian Munro with Ord Minnett. Your line is open.
Good morning, Ross. Good morning, Megan, Tracy. Just a couple of questions from me, please. Just firstly, just interested in the mixed impact of kind of temp versus perm workers across the business. And yeah, whether that, that, that was behind the kind of the margin compression in professional services in the second half. And perhaps, yeah, I guess a bit of a comparison with some of the global peers and how they've been reporting and, you know, how are you thinking about the resilience of the sectors that PPE are in relative to some of those global peers that have been reporting more negatively? And then secondly, just on the food industry people acquisition, yeah, contributing well, talking around broadening this out to other sectors.
Are there any other kind of regulatory hurdles that you need to get through in the next few months to allow that to happen? Thank you.
Yeah, no worries, and well, I'll cover those off. To start just with the mixed contract versus permanent mix, then we have seen an increase in the contract space across the board. So now we're at +94% of revenues coming from contracting. You know, that commentary that we've called out previously, that's but that movement. Then more specifically on your question, within tech, we have seen an increase in contractors that has had a you know, an impact on margin there. But also the other element is as I've talked about some industry sort of market headwinds, and we react to that, but also you gotta make sure you keep the engine room there because we have confidence that that market will recover.
And when it does, like we saw after COVID, it recovers really quickly. So, you know, been holding some resources there, obviously, then impact on margin as well. But, you know, long game is a good game. So the first part, then looking at industry, sort of global peers, and that is something we do track, and particularly looking at global peers and their Australian businesses. And from our assessment anyway, and looking at, you know, the different comparisons, then, you know, they are down compared to us, so we are outperforming our peers. And I think that comes back to our diversification, because when you look at our peers, be it global or domestic, then most of them are operating in one sector or a couple. They aren't as broad as we are.
You know, if you look at those in the industrial space, they don't have a health offering, as an example, and probably most don't have a professional services offering. So given that, that diversity then allows us to, you know, outperform against our peer group. And as I said in the presentation and my commentary, then, you know, we back ourselves as a leadership to continue, to do that moving forward. And then your last question around the regulatory side, and obviously there's a lot of commentary out there with regard to IR reform. You know, my commentary from previous discussions are no change.
You know, we are working with government on that, being the largest labour hire business, good labour hire business, then, you know, we are working with government on that and giving our viewpoint on what does that mean, what does that mean for small to medium enterprise, et cetera. And, you know, we are having good collaboration there, and we still, you know, see any changes coming out. For a good labour hire business like ours, there's probably more opportunity than anything. You know, the fundamentals of this IR reform, whether it be same job, same pay, et cetera, is all about those that aren't doing the right thing and to hold them to account. And as a public-listed labor hire talent solutions business, then, you know, we are. So I'd say overall would be opportunity for us.
I think we're nearly, nearly out of time now for other meetings, so I don't know if there's another question before we pull up stumps.
We do have a couple follow-up questions on the line. Would you like to take one more or the two of them?
No. No, we'll do one more.
Okay. So your next follow-up question is from Ben Wilson of Wilson's Advisory. Your line is open.
Thank you. Thanks for squeezing me in, Ross. Just one quick one. Just interested in what your client retention has been, in FY 2023 and, and particularly in the second half. I guess in particular in the tech space, if, if you've lost any key large clients, and also in nursing, just, just keen to sort of understand whether you've, I guess, retained all your sort of key hospital relationships and frameworks.
Yeah, so on the health side, you know, we're growing that client base there. On the tech side, you know, we're growing on the contracting piece. We've added some really good contracting panels, particularly over the last three months as well in the telecom space, but also in the government space, both states or territory government, as well as more recently, federal government. So that's good. From a permanent recruitment point of view, then, you know, it's not panels really in that permanent recruitment space, so it's hard to comment on you know, that retention, given sometimes it's for one role or five roles, but it's more of that engagement for a you know, a bulk rather than necessarily being on panel agreements in regard to permanent recruitment.
Okay, thank you.
Great. Well, thank you very much indeed to everyone. No doubt we will, we'll speak over the coming days and cover off any other questions that you may have. But, thank you again for your time, and hope you have a fantastic weekend.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.