GEE Group Inc. (NYSE American:JOB) together with its subsidiaries (collectively referred to as the "Company," "GEE Group," "our" or "we"), a provider of professional staffing services and human resource solutions, today announced that, effective January 3, 2025, it has acquired Hornet Staffing , Inc. ("Hornet"), an Atlanta-based provider of staff augmentation services with national service capability. Hornet provides staffing solutions to many markets serving large scale, "blue chip" companies in the information technology ("IT"), professional and customer service staffing verticals. The acquisition is expected to be accretive to earnings and generate solid adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP financial measure). Under the terms of the sale and purchase agreement, GEE Group acquired 100% of the Hornet common stock for consideration including cash and seller financing. Other terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Larry Bruce, Managing Director and Founder, will continue in his current capacity at Hornet and join the GEE Group National Sales Team to work with and assist all of the Company's vertical leaders with new business development.

The Hornet acquisition enhances GEE Group' s ability to compete more effectively and will help the Company secure new business from Fortune 1000 and other large users of contingent and outsourced labor. Its workforce solutions include significant expertise in working with managed service providers ("MSP") and vendor management systems ("VMS"). According to Staffing Industry Analysts ("SIA") "Workforce Solutions Buyer Survey", approximately 58% among companies with one thousand employees or more engage a third-party firm to manage their staffing providers. These large businesses spend for contingent labor is typically managed by MSP and VMS providers which are evolving rapidly, driven by the increasing complexity of workforce management and to achieve economies of scale in today's business environment. In 2023 according to SIA, the global MSP/VMS market accounted for approximately $222 billion of temporary staffing spend under management.

In light of the aforementioned trends and in order to compete more efficiently and effectively on these and other engagements, staffing agencies are turning to offshore recruiting models which continue to gain momentum as an increasing number of organizations turn to MSP and VMS for managing their contract labor providers. According to SIA, offshore recruiting teams located in cost-effective regions of the world provide significant cost savings and can help reduce operational expenses by up to approximately 70%, without compromising on quality. Hornet has adopted this method of recruiting which provides for faster hiring cycles tapping a vast, global talent pool; and, coupled with round-the-clock recruitment efforts, offshore recruiting can reduce hiring timelines by up to 40%, allowing staffing firms to attract top talent ahead of competitors. GEE Group plans to continue its on-shore relationship based recruitment for select customers and leverage Hornet's offshore recruiting capability with its state of the art technology across all of its staffing verticals on MSP, VMS and other large enterprise engagements. This gives the Company the flexibility and scalability to adjust hiring volumes based on project needs, ensuring efficiency without sacrificing quality.