Q&A at the Briefing of the Financial Results of the 3rd Quarter
Ended December 31, 2021
(held on February 14, 2022)
Questioner 1:
In the Career SBU, the informal appointments of workers in the placementbusiness increased by approx. 1.4 times year on year, exceeding approx. 1.3times growth achieved in the previous quarter. Could you inform me of the factors
behind it and future prospects?
Deputy President Takahashi:
One major factor is the increase in the headcount of consultants. We will continue
to invest in recruitments. Another factor is the productivity improvement
reflecting growth in demand for hiring among companies.
Toward the next fiscal year, we would like to increase the number of registeredjob seekers who are on a slightly weaker note compared to companies enjoying
a strong recovery in demand from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Questioner 2:
We believe that, in the domain of regular employees' career change in theplacement business, results for the high-income group had been strong until thefirst half of the current fiscal year. Could you tell me the current status by income
group? Are there any characteristics specific to business categories?
Deputy President Takahashi:
Results for high-annual-income group remained strong in the first half of thecurrent fiscal year. Since October 2021, however, demand for staff-class humanresources has been recovering rapidly. The overall demand for hiring is highamong companies at present.
CFO Seki:
By business category, demand for hiring IT and engineering positions hasremained brisk. In addition, job offers for manufacturing industry and sales
positions in the restaurant industry and others have also been increasing. At
present, demand has been strong in a wide range of business categories.
President Wada:
Above all, demand for hiring related to outsourcing business, including salespositions, has been strong.
Questioner 3:
I would like to ask you questions about the reorganization of PERSOLKELLY. Could
you inform me of the management issues you faced while managing the company
as a JV? Could you also tell me how you will take advantage of the current
strengths through DX and business portfolio change for future business
operation?
Yamazaki, Asia Pacific SBU Lead:
Regarding the issues we faced to date, we were overly dependent on theknowledge and operations of Kelly Services Inc. In addition, we gave priority tohaving PERSOL's way understood by them.

As a result, we could not takesufficient initiatives to improve profitability However, productivity has been
improved to a certain extent since we took the COVID-19 pandemic as anopportunity to review business processes. We believe that we can accelerate theproductivity improvement further as a result of the additional acquisition ofshares that we carry out at this moment.
With regard to taking advantage of the strengths, we believe that we can improve
productivity by applying the AI matching technologies, which we are advancing
in our Japanese business antecedently, to our top-class business scale in the Asia
Pacific region.
Questioner 4:
Could you inform me of the direction of the next mid-term management plan?
Could you tell me about the balance between Japanese and overseas businesses
as well as M&A policies in particular?
President Wada:
Regarding overseas business, we will again set improving profitability as a key
theme in the next mid-term management plan. We will operate the businessabove the currently planned level by advancing investment in growth
while changing the portfolio, aiming to build a firm base that will enable major
investments in the future.
In the business in Japan, we will continue to focus our efforts on placement
and temporary staffing sectors, which we believe to be important markets. At thesame time, we shall be proactive in recruiting engineers in the Professional
Outsourcing SBU.
As for M&A, we are not planning to advance major M&A projects proactively inoverseas business, but we consider it is important to improve profitability. On theother hand, we will certainly make investments that will enable us to improve
productivity through collaborations with operating companies possessing superior
technologies, as we attempt to build a structure that will consequently enable us
to drive business growth and profitability improvement clearly.