Indeed and Staffing reveal different ways Recruit earns.
Recruit helps people find jobs and companies recruit through services such as Indeed. Its staffing companies employ temporary staff and supply them to business clients. In Japan, it also runs booking and matching services such as HOT PEPPER Beauty and SaaS tools for business operations.
Three businesses generate ¥3.697 trillion of revenue
Staffing is the largest revenue business
DATA VIEW
Staffing generates 45.4% of external-customer revenue
Year ended March 2026. External-customer revenue only: Staffing ¥1,679,327m ÷ consolidated ¥3,697,351m. Site calculation from segment information, results p.25.
External revenue mix
Staffing45.4%Other54.6%
What does the business client pay for?
Staffing pays staff; Indeed supports recruitment
Simplified relationships. The upper arrows show money; the lower arrows show services.
Staffing: client fees fund staff personnel costs
Business clientThe workplace receiving staff
Staffing feesFrom business client to staffing company→
Staffing companyEmploys and supplies staff
WagesFrom staffing company to temporary staff→
Temporary staffWork at the client
Work provided: temporary staff → business client
Staffing revenue includes staff personnel costs that also enter cost of sales.
Indeed: services support employers’ recruiting
EmployerPosts jobs and selects candidates
Paid recruiting toolsFrom Indeed to employer←
IndeedConnects jobs and candidates
Job search and moreFrom Indeed to job seeker→
Job seekerFinds and applies for jobs
Fees paid: employer → Indeed (when using paid services)
Indeed services are shown as an example. HR Technology also includes Japanese placement services and other activities.
That difference matters when comparing the measure Recruit uses to assess business earnings.
HR Technology produces more than five times Staffing’s EBITDA+S
Because Staffing revenue includes staff personnel costs, its revenue-based margin tends to be lower than those of the other businesses. Recruit says its EBITDA+S divided by gross profit, after deducting cost of sales, is similar to the other two segments’ revenue-based margins. The 37.7% versus 5.9% comparison therefore cannot directly rank productivity or business quality (Our Business Model, “Staffing SBU’s Business Model”). HR Technology also includes Japanese placement services and other activities: its margin is not Indeed’s standalone margin.
DATA VIEW
The largest revenue business is not the earnings center
Year ended March 2026: reported segment revenue, including intersegment transactions, and EBITDA+S. This differs from the external-revenue mix above. Staffing revenue also includes temporary-staff personnel costs.
1.703Staffing revenue (¥tn)
99.7Staffing EBITDA+S (¥bn)
1.458HR Tech revenue (¥tn)
549.9HR Tech EBITDA+S (¥bn)
US average revenue per job rose 17% despite stagnant hiring demand
Indeed is presented as a “Two-Sided Decision-Making Marketplace”
Recruit has also been moving its long-established Japanese HR services into the same technology organization.
Japanese placement services moved into HR Technology in April 2025
In Japan, Recruit also applies its matching model to beauty, travel, dining, housing and other markets.
MMT generated ¥564.6 billion of revenue at a 27.4% EBITDA+S margin
The domestic platform connects a large base of individual accounts and business clients.
It connects 97 million Recruit IDs with more than 970,000 business clients
HOT PEPPER Beauty shows what one of those platforms looks like at transaction scale.
HOT PEPPER Beauty handled ¥1.1 trillion of annual GMV
MMT also describes changes in how it charges business clients.
From monthly advertising fees to actions, then GMV-linked economics
Staffing’s external-customer revenue accounts for 45.4% of consolidated revenue. Alongside it, Indeed and HOT PEPPER Beauty are extending support from publishing information toward the match, decision or transaction that follows.
THE VIEW AFTER THE NUMBERS
What the numbers suggest
What enters Recruit’s revenue depends on the work it does between businesses and people. Staffing’s ¥1.703 trillion includes temporary-staff personnel costs. On Indeed, services that help employers get jobs seen, find candidates and manage selection generate revenue.
That structure helps explain why Staffing has the largest revenue and HR Technology is the center of EBITDA+S. The 37.7% and 5.9% margins alone cannot rank the quality of the two businesses.
In Japan, MMT extends into bookings and tools for business operations. Advertising, recruiting support, temporary staffing and transaction-linked fees each connect a different service to a paying client. Following those relationships makes Recruit’s economics easier to understand.
Mizuno’s Japan operating-profit increase exceeded the consolidated increase in the year ended March 2026. The company says more direct selling, centered on Sportstyle shoes, lifted Japan’s gross margin. Meanwhile, tariffs raised costs in the Americas and a weak Korean golf market weighed on Asia and Oceania. Regional earnings reflect who buys the products, the route to the customer and the costs the company bears.
