HireQuest Finally Sees the Tide Turn: First Revenue Growth Since 2024 as National Accounts Pay Off
The temporary staffing specialist breaks a two-year slump as demand stabilizes and its national accounts program starts to score.
HQI · Earnings Call · 2026-08-10
The Turn
After two years of a "dead market," HireQuest is finally seeing green shoots blossom into something real. In its Q2 2026 earnings call, the company reported total revenue of $8.1 million, up 6% year over year — the first such growth since Q3 2024. Even more telling, stripping out the divested MRI network assets, pro forma revenue growth surged to 16.6%. As CEO Rick Hermanns put it: “we continued to see improving demand for temporary staffing services as the market stabilizes and employers begin to prioritize hiring again.” — Richard F. Hermanns, CEO · 2026-08-10 The stock, which had been in a long drawdown, has reacted accordingly: the last 90 days show a +66.7% return, and the stock sits just 3.2% below its August 13 high. This inflection is not just a blip. The company has maintained GAAP profitability every quarter since its 2024 one-time impairment charge, and on a non-GAAP basis, it has never reported a loss. The market is finally rewarding that resilience as the macro backdrop shifts.What's Driving It
The CEO cited three primary tailwinds: tighter immigration policies, a strengthening manufacturing labor market, and the payoff from the national accounts program. The latter is the company's own strategic bet, and it popped to the top of the keyword trajectory for the quarter. national account wins are now material enough to call out specifically — Hermanns mentioned a data center project and a large upstate New York account requiring 100 people a day for six weeks. "We are seeing a return on the investments we have made in our national accounts program," he said. This keyword, new to the top of the list, signals a genuine strategic pivot.national account wins are now material enough to call out specifically — Hermanns mentioned a data center project and a large upstate New York account requiring 100 people a day for six weeks. "We are seeing a return on the investments we have made in our national accounts program," he said. This keyword, new to the top of the list, signals a genuine strategic pivot. The manufacturing recovery is a shared theme — data center and reshoring appear repeatedly across global transcripts and the latest earnings reporters. But HireQuest is quick to note that data centers alone aren't the whole story; it's the broader reshoring and a contraction in labor supply (partly from immigration policy) that are restoring demand. Temporary staffing is finally tracking the unemployment rate, as Hermanns had hoped in prior calls. "We are starting to see the return of certain segments of business that really had not been there in a while," he noted in May, a theme now confirmed in the second quarter.Financial Strength
The revenue turnaround is coupled with disciplined cost control. CFO Dave Hartley highlighted that core SG&A fell to $3.8 million from $4.7 million, partly due to the MRI divestiture and partly from regained operating leverage. "We are just regaining our economies of scale," he said. The company remains debt-free with $41 million of credit availability, and continues to pay a regular dividend. Total revenue trend shows the bottoming and subsequent upturn in 2026. The adjusted EBITDA margin is expanding; adjusted net income came in at $0.23 per diluted share versus $0.15 a year ago. On a pro forma basis, franchise royalties were up 13.8% — a clear sign the core franchise model is healing.Outlook
Management is cautiously optimistic. They don't give formal guidance, but they point to six weeks of strong data into Q3. "We have held the growth from the second half of the second quarter," Hermanns said, referring to the weekly year-over-year comparisons that reached 12–13% by quarter end. They also see a robust pipeline in national accounts — more opportunities than they can even respond to — and a general industry shift back toward temporary staffing, echoing what other staffing companies are reporting.Still, Hermanns is careful not to overpromise. The last three-and-a-half years have taught him humility. "I am not arrogant enough to think that I can tell you what is gonna happen in Q4," he said, "because, if anything, the last 3.5 years is taught us is that we are still a product of our industry." That measured tone, combined with the first genuine growth in two years, makes this quarter a potential inflection point for HireQuest.We operate in an industry where a rising tide tends to lift all ships. With macro factors like interest rates and the political landscape weighing heavily upon employers' decisions to hire downsize, or even freeze their efforts altogether.