ASGN Inc.’s (NYSE: ASGN) revenue rose 0.9% in the third quarter on the strength of its federal government business. The Richmond, Virginia-based firm’s services include IT staffing, government services and marketing/creative staffing among others.

“We witnessed very balanced growth in Q3, with week-over-week improvements across all of our operating segments,” President and CEO Ted Hanson said. “The ECS segment, our federal government business, saw better-than-expected results, with revenues up 40% year-over-year.”

The company’s commercial revenue took a hit from the Covid-19 pandemic, but ASGN reported business was improving from a low-point in the middle of the second quarter. Customers are moving forward with strategic technology roadmaps, the company said.

“We believe that this steady growth during the third quarter is sound evidence that our business hit trough levels in the second quarter and is now on a clear upward trajectory,” Hanson said.

Revenue by segment

Blackstone Federal, acquired in January for $85 million, helped boost ECS revenue, and ASGN said federal revenue also benefitted from increased volume from existing customers — mainly artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions and development/expansion of unclassified networks — as well as new contract awards.

The company’s commercial business includes Apex Systems and Oxford Core, IT services providers, where revenue was down 5.0%. Revenue in ASGN’s creative marketing and perm placement divisions, Creative Circle and CyberCoders, was down 30.6%.

In addition to Blackstone Federal, ASGN has made other recent acquisitions, including LeapFrog Systems Inc., now part of Apex Systems, and Skyris LLC, now part of ECS segment.

Guidance

Fourth-quarter revenue is expected to be down between 3.6% and 5.6%.

Share price and market cap

Shares in ASGN were up 2.73% to $67.84 as of 11:56 a.m. Eastern time; they were 9.36% below their 52-week high. The company had a market cap of $3.63 billion.