Professional staffing firm Kforce Inc. (NASDAQ: KFRC) reported second-quarter revenue rose 17.7% year over year to $403.6 million, exceeding the high end of its forecast. The Tampa, Florida-based professional staffing firm noted continued momentum in its technology segment, with revenue up 9.4% sequentially on a billing-day basis and 21.5% year over year.

“New assignment starts in technology are not only reaching all-time highs, but they have been remarkably consistent and broad-based,” said President Joseph Liberatore. “We believe that this speaks volumes as to the primarily non-discretionary, mission critical work we are performing across our blue-chip client portfolio.” Kforce expects third quarter year-over-year growth in its technology business of approximately 25%, which would represent more than 20% organic growth over the third quarter 2019, pre-pandemic. 

Liberatore also cited “nice progress” transitioning finance and accounting business to higher-skilled positions, such as analytics and decision-support roles.

Revenue by segment

Kforce secured large contracts to support government-sponsored initiatives related to Covid-19, which materially positively impacted its finance and accounting segment and specifically its F&A flex business. These initiatives are possibly shorter-term and likely non-recurring in nature, the company stated.

Guidance

The third quarter will have the same number of billing days as the third quarter of last year. Kforce forecast revenue of between $385 million to $393 million, a year-over-year increase of between 5.4% and 7.5%.

Share price and market cap

Shares in Kforce were down 5.91% to $59.36 as of 11:26 a.m. Eastern time; they were below the 52-week high of 64.38, set on June 2, according to FT.com. The company had a market cap of $1.38 billion.