In 2025, the staffing and consulting industries remained impacted by persistent global economic uncertainty, resulting in ongoing caution among clients and job seekers. Lengthened decision cycles and clients’ focus on cost initiatives tempered hiring activity and new project starts throughout much of the year.
Against this backdrop, we implemented disciplined cost-saving measures early in the year to sustain trough-level profitability while remaining well positioned to support clients when demand improves. Sequential revenue trends stabilized and began to improve in the second half of the year, with fourth-quarter talent solutions and enterprise revenues returning to positive sequential growth on a same-day, constant-currency basis for the first time since early 2022.
Despite the cautious environment, clients continued to invest selectively in technology modernization initiatives, supporting staffing and consulting demand focused on enterprise resource planning systems upgrades, cybersecurity and AI readiness, including data-related projects.
Full-year global revenues for the Company were $5.38 billion in 2025, a decrease of 7% from $5.80 billion in 2024. U.S. revenues decreased by 8% to $4.17 billion. International revenues of $1.21 billion for the year decreased by 5% compared with 2024 and accounted for 22% of the Company total.
“We ended the year with strong momentum, generating cash flow provided by operations during the fourth quarter of $183 million.”
In 2025, net income was $133 million ($1.33 per share), compared with net income of $252 million ($2.44 per share) in 2024. Cash flow from operations for the year was $320 million, compared with $410 million in 2024. We ended the year with strong momentum, generating cash flow provided by operations during the fourth quarter of $183 million, the highest quarter in 2025 and an 18% increase over the fourth quarter of 2024. We remain committed to our capital allocation strategy of returning excess cash flow to shareholders. Our full-year dividend was $2.36 per share for 2025, resulting in an aggregate cash outlay of $238 million. It was completely covered by our cash flow generated from operations for the year. We also repurchased approximately 1.7 million Robert Half shares during the year for $80 million. Our return on invested capital was 10% for 2025.
Our 2025 talent solutions revenues were $3.43 billion, with contract talent solutions revenues and permanent placement revenues decreasing 11% and 10%, respectively, compared with 2024. Talent solutions accounts for 64% of 2025 total Company revenues. 2025 revenues for Protiviti were $1.95 billion, essentially flat compared with 2024, accounting for 36% of 2025 total Company revenues. Protiviti also closed the fourth quarter of 2025 with a return to positive adjusted sequential revenue growth.
We ended 2025 with a strong, debt-free balance sheet—with $464 million in cash and cash equivalents, $748 million in net accounts receivable, and $2.86 billion in total assets—providing exceptional financial strength and liquidity and driving ongoing financial flexibility.
Our Unique Market Position
The synergy between our talent solutions business and Protiviti is an advantage other staffing firms and Big Four consulting firms simply cannot match. We offer a delivery approach built around client needs and powered by a flexible talent pool and deep consulting capabilities. Our strategic engagement of contract professionals via our talent solutions divisions plays an essential role in Protiviti’s success and further amplifies our unique, enterprisewide competitive advantage. Clients increasingly recognize the value of our integrated execution and competitive pricing.
What also sets Robert Half apart are our award-winning, AI-enabled matching capabilities paired with the skills, judgment and expertise of our specialized recruiting professionals. Our proprietary technology improves match quality and enhances the AI tools our recruiters use to discover, assess and select candidates, particularly at the higher skill level. We also use AI to identify companies most likely to hire or have project needs, allowing our professionals to focus their efforts on high-potential leads.
The Path Forward
Business confidence levels are improving, particularly for small and midsize businesses. Decision timelines are beginning to shorten as clients revisit postponed initiatives and consider hiring tied to business-critical priorities. The U.S. job market remains resilient with February 2026 unemployment at 4.4%, including just 3% among college-educated professionals and lower still in high-demand finance, accounting and technology roles. While hiring and quit rates remain subdued, job openings continue to run well above historical norms, signaling strong pent-up hiring demand. The National Federation of Independent Business’s Small Business Optimism Index for February 2026 remained above its 52-year average of 98 for the tenth consecutive month. As business confidence improves, hiring urgency and project activity typically follow.
“As business confidence improves, hiring urgency and project activity typically follow.”
As AI reshapes how work gets done and the skills required for many roles evolve, clients are increasingly turning to Robert Half to help them navigate change, deploy candidates quickly, and support technology-driven consulting and staffing initiatives. This dynamic further enhances the value of our services and strengthens our long-term positioning.
The fast-growing use of generative AI by job seekers—particularly to tailor their resumes to client opportunities—has challenged hiring managers in distinguishing candidates and assessing their qualifications, making it more difficult for them to hire on their own. Automated tools have enabled mass candidate applications—often to a fault—resulting in a surge of resumes that take longer to process, including many from candidates who lack the requisite skills. Our solution is grounded in proprietary data that captures candidates’ prior performance. The most reliable measure of skills and experience comes from the performance evaluations we obtain after a candidate completes an assignment, which are also a significant input to our candidate matching algorithms. With many of our contract engagements performed by professionals who have successfully worked with us before, clients benefit from the reassurance of highly skilled candidates with proven experience and verified credentials. At the same time, our traditional candidate evaluation methods remain important, providing an added layer of confidence beyond resumes—particularly in assessing soft skills.
Amid these trends, the need for validated skills underscores the importance of our professional recruiters-plus-AI service model. As hiring demand rebounds, these strengths position us to capture share, particularly from smaller competitors, and succeed in an increasingly AI-driven market. With our industry-leading brand, people and technology, we are well positioned to capitalize on emerging opportunities and support our clients’ talent and consulting needs.
Protiviti’s sales pipeline and outlook remain strong, particularly in internal audit and financial advisory, technology consulting, and business process improvement consulting.
We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our employees worldwide, whose dedication and excellence earned Robert Half several prestigious accolades in 2025. We are proud to be among an elite group of companies—and the only one in our industry—recognized as a Fortune® Most Admired Company™ for 29 consecutive years. In addition, being named one of Fortune’s Most Innovative Companies and, with Protiviti, one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For® reflects our people-first organizational culture and underscores the foundation of our continued success.
We sincerely thank our board of directors for their stewardship and you, our shareholders, for your continued support. Together, we look forward to building on this momentum and delivering long-term value in the years ahead.
Respectfully submitted,
