Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd. (TSE 6098) ("Recruit Holdings") today announced an annual update regarding its Commitment to Sustainability, a corporate strategy first announced in May 2021. Recruit Holdings and its subsidiaries (hereafter referred to as the Company, Recruit Group, We, or Us) have made solid progress toward its fiscal year (FY) 2030¹ environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals, with the aim of delivering sustainable growth while also creating equitable social impact.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be calming down, there are growing concerns in countries around the world about widening social and economic disparities as the possibility of an economic recession looms and as geopolitical tension continues. At Recruit Group, we remain focused on delivering a long-term positive impact on society and the environment through all of our corporate activities along with our stakeholders so that everyone may prosper together.

Environmental: Climate Action

We only have one planet, and everyone has a responsibility to protect the health and longevity of our home. Recruit Group is committed to protecting our environment by focusing on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions — a key issue against which we are taking action to address climate change.

We anticipate achieving our short-term goal of reaching carbon neutrality throughout our business activities in FY2022 - just as in FY2021.^2,3 Our long-term goal is to achieve carbon neutrality across our entire value chain by FY2030.^2,3 In order to accelerate our efforts toward this long-term goal, we set a three-year reduction target⁴ and signed on to the Science Based Targets initiative’s (SBTi) “Near-term targets to 1.5°C.”⁵ As a result of our environmental actions, following 2021, we were selected as a Supplier Engagement Leader, CDP’s highest supplier engagement rating for 2022.⁶

Furthermore, we have also started contributing to the environment through our products. With Indeed Interview, which allows users to complete job interviews online, we are avoiding GHG emissions.⁷

Social: Shorten Job Search Duration by Half

Having a job is one of the most important facets of life for many people. For example, according to an OECD study, approximately 40% of people could fall into poverty if they went without income for three months or more.⁸ Speed matters when it comes to finding jobs. As a leading global two-sided talent marketplace, helping match job seekers to hiring employers, we are well positioned to expand employment opportunities for all and reduce the time to get hired. We are committed to making a social impact through our products and services.

To do this, it is crucial for our job platform to leverage data and technology to enhance the speed and accuracy of job matching.

As part of our commitment to reduce the time it takes to get hired by half by FY2030, we are focused on expanding the collection and analysis of user data on Indeed. We made progress on this in FY2022, and in doing so, we discovered that there are large differences in job search duration based on the type of occupation as well as the salary range.

We made advancements in product development to shorten the time to get hired. For example, we observed that job search duration was 17% shorter when job seekers applied to open roles that were sponsored and when those hiring employers used a Pay Per Application pricing model instead of a Pay Per Click model.⁹ In addition, the time to hire for employers decreased 16% when they used Indeed Assessments which enables skill-based matching.¹⁰

We remain committed to learning more about job search duration and improving our products and services for the benefit of society.

Social: Help 30 Million Job Seekers Facing Barriers Get Jobs

All too often, traditional hiring practices have the unfortunate potential to reinforce systemic labor market biases and barriers that cannot be solved by speed and matching improvements alone. Through reducing various biases and barriers in the labor market, Recruit Group will increase access to opportunities for all job seekers and contribute to shortening the time it takes to find a job, helping people achieve economic security through employment.

We set a goal of helping 30 million job seekers facing barriers get jobs by FY2030 by reducing bias and barriers in hiring that can make it harder for many job seekers to find, get and keep a job. We worked to reduce common barriers that affect people globally such as education, disabilities, criminal records, experience in military services and lack of work essentials¹¹ such as access to technology and transportation. Research shows that employers often reject candidates without post-secondary education, even when the candidate has sufficient skills for the job.¹² Additionally, those with criminal records¹³ and military experience¹⁴ demonstrate prolonged periods of unemployment, especially in the United States.

While our challenge is just beginning, through making improvements to our products and partnerships,¹⁵ we are proud to have been able to help 3.9 million job seekers facing barriers get hired.¹⁶

Social: Achieve Gender Parity Across the Company

The diversity of Recruit Group's employees has been the source of our value creation from the very beginning. Betting on the passion and ideas of our employees has long been our competitive advantage. This is why our corporate agenda continues to prioritize a diverse, equitable and inclusive (DEI) workforce that empowers individuals and fosters innovation. We are making a significant effort to increase diversity within management by ensuring that our appointment processes are equitable and do not enable bias on the basis of gender, nationality, age, or recruitment route.

We are addressing our overall gender gap by working towards a group-wide commitment to increase the representation of women across the group companies to achieve approximately 50% in senior executive positions, managerial positions, and total employees within the Company by FY2030.¹⁷ To accelerate our efforts, we have also set a three-year target.⁴

One such example is underway within the Matching & Solutions SBU,¹⁸ which operates mainly in Japan where the gender gap is particularly significant. To increase representation of women, we worked to identify and reduce gender bias by clarifying the requirements for managerial positions and reevaluating what had previously been considered as must-have skills or necessary work styles. These efforts not only increased representation of women in managerial candidates, but also opened up opportunities for employees regardless of gender, and enhanced the overall pool of managerial candidates.

Governance: Achieve Gender Parity of the Board

Diversity in the boardroom is also critical for high quality decision-making, transparency and soundness in a company’s governance structure. Recruit Holdings continues to enhance the diversity of skills, experience, and backgrounds of the board members and is committed to achieving approximately 50% women’s representation among the members of the Board of Directors and Audit and Supervisory Board by FY2030.

In FY2023, Recruit Holdings will propose candidates for the Board of Directors including Katrina Lake as a new addition at its Annual General Meeting of Shareholders in June 2023. If approved, the representation of women will increase from approximately 27% to approximately 33%.¹⁹ This appointment will not only broaden the diversity of the Board of Directors from a gender perspective, but also in terms of nationality, age, skills and experience.

The Board of Directors has resolved to set mid-term targets over a three-year period for both GHG emissions reduction and gender parity, and beginning in FY2022 Recruit Holdings has linked the achievement of these targets to a percentage of the long-term incentive compensation²⁰ for the executive directors and corporate officers in charge of driving and realizing these ESG goals.

In addition to the above, the Company positions data security and privacy, corporate ethics and compliance, human rights, and employee engagement as material foundations for its corporate activities and will prioritize related initiatives. As the Company makes progress toward these ESG goals, it will be monitored by the Board. Led by Ayano "Sena" Senaha — Director, Executive Vice President, and COO, and responsible for Recruit Group's sustainability commitments and ESG goals — the Company will advance related initiatives based on dialogue with various stakeholders and through advisory bodies to the Board of Directors, such as the Sustainability Committee.

Please refer to the website below for more details regarding our commitment to sustainability and related initiatives. https://recruit-holdings.com/en/sustainability/