(Bloomberg) -- Adyen NV expects its profit margin to increase next year after throttling down hiring, according to its chief executive officer.  

“2023 is also a year in which we are hiring — then it should slow down to normal levels,” Chief Executive Officer Pieter van der Does said in an interview at the company’s headquarters in Amsterdam. For the company’s profit margin, that means “it’s going to trend in the other direction” once hiring slows, he said.

The Dutch fintech company’s current hiring plans are at odds with rival payment firms who have begun taking deep job cuts to right-size their operations amid a challenging macro environment. Adyen, which processes payments for companies such as Uber Technologies Inc. and H&M, plans to enroll over a thousand new employees this year after a similar hiring push in 2022.

The firm’s continued hiring has put pressure on its profitability and stock market performance. Adyen’s shares fell 44% in 2022 amid a slowdown in e-commerce spending after the pandemic. 

Its margin on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization — a measure of profitability — missed analyst estimates last month, mounting skepticism on its long-term outlook.

The Dutch firm, which employs over 3,300 people, hired fewer staff during the pandemic than it wanted to. This was partly because the market for engineers was “overheated” over the past few years, Van der Does said. 

“It’s also a bit of compensation for that window and also somewhere opportunistic because they are now around,” he said. “So let’s sign them up.”

(Corrects Pieter van der Does’s title to chief executive officer as he will become co-CEO after shareholder approval on May 11)

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