The Work Number Accounts for 28 Percent of TALX Corp.'s Second Quarter Revenues
ST. LOUIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 27, 1998--TALX Corp. (Nasdaq:TALX - news) reported that its service The Work Number(R), which automates employment and salary verification for hundreds of the nation's largest employers, has grown to account for 28 percent of the software and services company's total revenue recorded for the second quarter ended Sept. 30, 1998, versus 15 percent in the year-earlier quarter.
The Work Number posted revenues of $2 million for the quarter, up from $934,000 for the same quarter last year, for a 116 percent increase. For the second quarter ended Sept. 30, 1996, The Work Number had revenues of $332,000 representing 7 percent of total revenues.
Currently available through both 1-800 and 1-900 telephone networks, The Work Number service generates transaction revenue as users access the nation's largest multi-employer database of employment and salary records. This month TALX began offering Internet access to a portion of the database and expects to increase Internet transaction volume as more users register for access to the service's secure Web site.
The Work Number utilizes a proprietary database with more than 20 million employment and salary records under contract. Of these, 15.6 million records are currently live on the database with the remaining 5 million records in process of being added.
''As we've grown the employer database, our transaction volume has increased dramatically while we've still maintained the high level of data security our clients demand,'' explained Bill Canfield, president of TALX Corp. ''The transaction revenue generated by The Work Number is a predictable stream of revenue that correlates with the growth of the database and the amount of information required by the mortgage lending, pre-employment screening and background checking industries that are users of the service. While it's too early to estimate the effect Internet access will have on revenue, we can say that offering Internet access to our clients increases the appeal of the service and at the same time it helps lower our operating costs,'' Canfield said.
''In two years, The Work Number revenue has grown from less than 10 percent of our total to now nearly a third. The success of this line of business stems from a growing number of innovative, business-minded executives in the human resources sector who are committed to outsourcing and automating non-strategic tasks in order to deliver better service to their employees at a lower cost,'' Canfield said.
''Based upon current transaction trends, growth of the database and demand for more information per transaction, TALX forecasts that revenues from The Work Number will increase in excess of 90 percent over the next 12 months as compared to the prior 12 months,'' he added.
About TALX
St. Louis-based TALX Corp. provides interactive Web and interactive voice response (IVR) software and services to both the corporate and public sector. The company offers two branded solutions for the Human Resource, Benefits and Payroll market: The Work Number(R) and Employee Central(TM). More information can be obtained from the company's Web site: talx.com.
Statements made in this press release expressing the beliefs and expectations of TALX management regarding future performance are forward-looking and may involve risks and uncertainties, including the risks detailed in the company's Form 10-K for the year ended March 31, 1998 and other documents on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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Contact:
TALX Corp.
Jackie Engel, 314/434-0046
jengel@talx.com
or
DG&A Communications
Jill Sherman, 314/725-0122
jills@dgastl.com |
