Q3 2024 TrueBlue Inc Earnings Call
Greetings and welcome to the True Blue 3rd Quarter, 2024 earnings call. At this time, participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation.
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As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.
At this time, I want to remind everyone that today's call and slide presentation contain forward-looking statements, all of which are subject to risk and uncertainties, and management assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements.
He's risks and uncertainties, some of which are described in today's press release and FTC filings could cause actual results of different materialy from those in their forward-booking statements.
Management uses non-gap measures when presenting financial results. You are encouraged to review the non-gap reconciliation in today's earnings release or at www.trublude.com under the Investor Relations section.
For a complete understanding of these terms and their purpose.
And he comparisons me today are based on a comparison to the same period in the prior year, unless otherwise stated.
Lastly, a copy of the company's prepared remarks will be provided on True Blues Investor website at the conclusion of today's call. And a full transcript, an audio replay will be available soon after the call.
Speaker Change: It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Taryn Owen, President and Chief Executive Officer.
Taryn Owen: Thank you operator and welcome everyone to today's call. I am joined by our chief financial officer Carl Schweihs. We appreciate you being here with us.
Taryn Owen: As expected, market conditions for me challenging.
Taryn Owen: Revenue for the quarter was 382 million. Down 19% compared to the prior year, as uncertainty and client caution continue to weigh on the staffing industry, leading to reduced business spend and curb hiring trends.
House Dimmern sir looking for market confidence to grow before making significant adjustments to their workforce strategy.
Taryn Owen: The Tethasy is a parent in both current client volume as well as new business trends with engagement starting at subdued levels, following an among-util decision process.
Taryn Owen: Give them a labor dynamic set play. We are focused on the areas we can control to meet the needs of the current market and ensure we are well-sufficient to support demands as workforce needs expand.
Taryn Owen: Our teams are doing tremendous work, leading customers where they are today, which short duration, complexable solutions, while also establishing new relationships that will drive future growth.
Taryn Owen: Ward-Avel, as the economy slowed, one of our long-standing national onsite customers, a Fortune 100 retailer, reduce their contingent labor as their own volumes decline.
Taryn Owen: We maintain a strong connection with the customer while serving fewer locations, and as the customer reopened and lost new facilities, we were there to support their needs, expanding to the new sites and deepening our relationship.
Taryn Owen: Another example comes through our people's gout scene to secure an art viewing engagement early in the year with a multi-national food product company.
Taryn Owen: Driven by our exceptional service and execution, that client relationship has recently expanded to encompass MSP and professional services.
Taryn Owen: A few examples are a testament to our keen ability to adapt and create opportunity for additional growth.
Taryn Owen: As our teams say highly engaged with clients to address both their immediate and evolving needs, we are also scaling our operating structure to align with current market demand while delivering efficiencies to ensure we are ready as customer volumes return.
Taryn Owen: We understand the current labor dynamics and we are managing through the cycle with the discipline and agility needed to ensure we are even better positions as conditions improve.
Taryn Owen: We are also committed to advancing our strategic priorities to capture market share and enhance our long-term profitability.
Taryn Owen: We made significant progress during the quarter, accelerating our digital transformation, expanding our presence in attractive and market, and simplifying our organizational structure to better leverage our inherent strengths as we look to capture the growth opportunities ahead.
Taryn Owen: Positioning our contingent staffing business to better compete in a digital forward future is a key strategic priority. Our expansive local presence powered by our national footprint and differentiating technology, that's not the part of the market leader.
Taryn Owen: We have successfully rolled out our new for privateary.gov.app across our brand network and national account base. Well ahead of our year-end goal.
Taryn Owen: The transition, Marsistic Nificant Milestone, in the digital transformation of our business, as the proprietary technology allows us to control our roadmap and quickly address of all the news there needs, increasing the ease in which customers and associates engage with us.
Taryn Owen: We are excited by the early success of our launch as we leverage real time insights to implement enhancements.
Taryn Owen: For example, customers share their desire for an easy way to get high-performing and so-seats back on their work site. And we responded quickly with an exclusive invite feature that connects to your associate at the customer using a fast and seamless experience.
Taryn Owen: Seasur and sites allow us to implement competitive enhancements faster, rapidly improving our product and services and continually expanding the value we bring to our customers and associate.
Taryn Owen: We look forward to developing additional features as we strengthen our market position through a differentiated experience that combines our technology with our expansive market presence and expertise.
Taryn Owen: Another key strategic priority is our expansion and high growth, less cyclical and under penetrated in markets to capitalize on secular growth opportunities.
Taryn Owen: We have continued to expand our health care presence across the organization and we have developed a strong position in attractive skilled trade markets including commercial driving services and renewable energy work.
Taryn Owen: Leveraging our deep expertise and expanded service offerings, we delivered our third consecutive quarter of growth in commercial driving services.
Taryn Owen: While our renewable energy work did not grow in the quarter, we are up double digits for the year.
Taryn Owen: Fluctuation in client volumes is expected given the nature of these projects and the pipeline remains healthy, positioning us well to capture further growth opportunities in this space.
Taryn Owen: We have also continued to diversify our RPO business into higher skilled placements, including professional search, and leverage our flexible solutions to capture growth opportunities in attractive end markets such as technology and professional services.
Taryn Owen: We are energized by our early success, winning new deals and expanding existing relationships with higher-skilled roles and serving high-growth and high-value end markets.
Taryn Owen: As customer volumes return, the scale of these engagements will drive further opportunities for revenue expansion.
Taryn Owen: A third strategic priority is simplifying our organizational structure to drive enhanced focus, growth, and profitability.
Taryn Owen: Streamlining creates opportunities to reduce inefficiencies and brings our teams closer to our clients and associates to deliver operational excellence.
Taryn Owen: We have made notable strides in this area and continue to operate with discipline to create greater agility and flexibility to scale as we look to realize future growth.
Taryn Owen: We reduced our operating costs by 17% for the quarter, and beyond that, we are already seeing benefits from our efforts in the form of increased synergies and cross-selling as we eliminate silos and enhance our focus on our core specialties.
Taryn Owen: Although current labor market dynamics are challenging, the long-term staffing outlook remains positive.
Taryn Owen: Evolving workforce needs and structural staffing shortages will create compelling opportunities for our business, and our competitive strengths, tremendous assets, and clear strategic priorities position us well for growth.
Taryn Owen: We are excited about the opportunities ahead, and we are confident that we have the right people, technology, and resources to drive our strategic priorities forward, enhancing shareholder value, and advancing our mission to connect people and work.
Speaker Change: I will now pass the call over to Carl, who will share further details around our financial results and outlook.
Carl Schweihs: Thank you, Taryn.
Carl Schweihs: Total revenue for the quarter was $382 million, a decline of 19%.
Carl Schweihs: Overall market demand for temporary labor and permanent hiring continues to be suppressed as clients focus on reducing their operating costs and remain hesitant to make full-time hires due to uncertainty in their workforce needs.
Carl Schweihs: While these factors led to overall subdued client volumes, our commercial driving services showed strength.
Taryn Owen: delivering double-digit growth to the quarter.
Taryn Owen: This marks the third consecutive quarter of growth for our commercial driving services, and our team continues to capitalize on this momentum, pursuing additional growth opportunities in this space.
Taryn Owen: Gross margin was 26.2% for the quarter and flat compared to the prior year.
Taryn Owen: There were a couple of offsetting components for this quarter.
Taryn Owen: Changes in revenue mix both from more favorable trends in our lower margin people management segment as well as the decline in our highest margin business PeopleScout drove a decline of 80 basis points.
Taryn Owen: Pricing pressures consistent with the current market environment contributed another 60 basis points of decline.
Taryn Owen: These factors were offset by 140 basis points of expansion from lower workers compensation costs driven by favorable development of prior year reserves.
Taryn Owen: We reduced SG&A by 17% as we remain committed to enhancing our profitability.
Taryn Owen: We're focused on the areas we can control, which is demonstrated by our disciplined actions to better align our cost structure with client demand.
Taryn Owen: We've made significant progress simplifying our organizational structure and creating efficiencies that are already driving improved results.
Taryn Owen: Looking forward, our profitability traditionally expands quickly as revenue grows.
Taryn Owen: But with our lean cost structure and improved efficiencies, we are even better positioned to deliver enhanced profitability as conditions improve.
Taryn Owen: We reported a net loss of $8 million this quarter.
Taryn Owen: which included 1 million of income tax expense primarily associated with our foreign operations and essentially zero income tax benefit on US operations due to the valuation allowance in effect on our US deferred tax assets.
Taryn Owen: As a reminder the valuation allowance has no impact on our operations, liquidity, or debt covenants.
Taryn Owen: Adjusted net loss was $3 million, while adjusted EBITDA was $5 million.
Taryn Owen: Now let's turn to the specifics of our segments.
Taryn Owen: PeopleReady revenue decreased 24%.
Taryn Owen: which includes two points of decline from the sale of our on-demand business in Canada.
Taryn Owen: and Segment Profit Margin was down 200 basis points.
Taryn Owen: Lower client volumes continued to drive
Taryn Owen: We entered the quarter behind our typical sequential build, which continued in July.
Taryn Owen: But as we progressed through the quarter, we did return to historical sequential trends in August and September.
Taryn Owen: For renewable energy work, we didn't grow in the quarter due to the lower volume on existing solar projects, mainly driven by high temperatures in the southwest United States.
Taryn Owen: as well as a delayed new project starts.
Taryn Owen: Given the nature of these renewable energy projects, these types of delays and fluctuations in volumes are expected.
Taryn Owen: We continue to produce double-digit growth for the year as we capitalize on the secular growth opportunities with a strong market position.
Taryn Owen: From a margin perspective, the contraction was largely driven by lower operating leverage as revenue declined.
Taryn Owen: PeopleScout revenue decreased 31% and segment profit margin was down 490 basis points.
Taryn Owen: The decline in demand was driven by lower client volumes as businesses continue to navigate challenging market dynamics, responding to cost pressures and uncertainty around their workforce needs.
Taryn Owen: Results for the quarter were also impacted by the loss of a large hospitality client which accounted for eight points of the revenue decline.
Taryn Owen: The loss was due to the client's decision to insource the hiring of high-volume roles as part of a broader strategy change.
Taryn Owen: At the same time, our team is doing a great job adding clients to the portfolio and has already outperformed in the prior year in new business wins.
Taryn Owen: While many of these new wins are starting at subdued levels, we expect these relationships to drive further revenue expansion as customers' hiring volumes return.
Taryn Owen: The margin contraction was driven by lower operating leverage as revenue declined.
Taryn Owen: People management revenue decreased 5% while segment profit margin was up 90 basis points.
Taryn Owen: The decline in demand was driven by lower on-site client volumes, consistent with the macro conditions evident in the verticals we serve, such as retail.
Taryn Owen: This was partially offset by double-digit growth in our commercial driving services, which delivered its third consecutive quarter of growth in Q3.
Taryn Owen: People Management Segment Profit Margin expanded duty discipline cost management actions to better align our cost structure with client demand and improved efficiencies.
Taryn Owen: Now let's turn to the balance sheet.
Taryn Owen: We finished the quarter with no debt, $15 million in cash, and $133 million of borrowing availability. We repurchased $4 million of common stock during the quarter, leaving $34 million remaining under our authorization.
Taryn Owen: While operating cash flows are down, largely driven by changes in revenue mix and the associated working capital, we have a solid balance sheet and a strong liquidity position. This provides us with great flexibility as we look to drive future growth opportunities.
Taryn Owen: Turning to the outlook for the fourth quarter, we expect a revenue decline of 24 to 18 percent.
Taryn Owen: This includes 6 percentage points of headwind from the extra 14th week in our fiscal fourth quarter last year, as well as 1 percentage point due to the sale of our on-demand business in Canada.
Taryn Owen: Our outlook reflects a continuation of current market trends because while there are some bright spots and signs of improvement, we have yet to see an indication as to when overall demand trends will turn.
Taryn Owen: We expect SG&A of $98 million to $102 million, which represents a reduction of roughly $30 million compared to the prior year period, as we manage through this market cycle with a commitment to enhance our profitability and ensure we are well positioned as the demand environment rebounds.
Taryn Owen: Additional information on our Outlook can be found in the earnings presentation shared on our website today.
Speaker Change: Before we open the call up for questions, I want to turn it back over to Taryn for some closing remarks.
Taryn Owen: Thank you, Carl. As you have heard from us today, we remain committed to advancing our strategic priorities and managing through this challenging market cycle with the agility and discipline needed to strategically position us for even stronger growth and profitability when industry demand rebounds.
Taryn Owen: We are confident that our strategic priorities, in combination with our many strengths and assets, will enable us to advance our mission to connect people and work while delivering long-term shareholder value.
Taryn Owen: This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, please open the call now for questions.
Taryn Owen: Thank you.
Speaker Change: And at this time, we will conduct our question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue.
Speaker Change: You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Once again, to ask a question, press star 1 on your telephone keypad.
Speaker Change: And our first question comes from Jeff Silber with BMO Capital Markets. Please state your question.
Speaker Change: Hey, good afternoon. Thanks so much. This is Ryan on for Jeff.
Speaker Change: I was just wondering if you could provide a feel for how the customer count has been moving. I think at this point in time the labor market demand weakness is pretty well understood, but perhaps that's more of a volume issue than customer attrition issue. And then additionally, is there anything you can tell us about the number of customer wins?
Speaker Change: how the retention has been trending and how those two have been playing into the net customer count, you know Is it up or down this year? Just trying to understand whether the current revenue weakness is volume driven versus anything secular going on. Thank you
Speaker Change: Hi Ryan, thank you so much for the question.
Speaker Change: Despite the ongoing market challenges and subdued customer demands, our teams are continuing to retain and expand existing customer relationships, as well as when new customers, positioning True Blue favorably for significant growth when volume returns to historical levels.
Speaker Change: In our people-ready, on-demand business, although revenue for the quarter declined sequentially from quarter two, our customer count continued to grow sequentially into quarter three, which is a trend that did continue from the prior quarter.
Speaker Change: and our PeopleScout business.
Speaker Change: That business has nearly doubled the total of new annualized wins in comparison to this time last year. And many of those wins are in attractive markets like healthcare as well as higher skilled professional roles.
Speaker Change: And then our people management business, New Winds, are up double-digit year-to-date on annualized wind volume.
Speaker Change: Within that, Centerline, as we mentioned, continues to outperform the market, delivering double-digit growth for the quarter.
Speaker Change: and now three consecutive quarters of growth in a row. And in that business, we saw both significant expansion with an existing customer, as well as new logo wins being added to the portfolio.
Speaker Change: Certainly, the strong customer retention, scope expansion and new customer wins is positioning us very nicely to capture market share as volumes return to normalized levels both with our current customers and the new customers that we're bringing on board.
Speaker Change: Understood, thank you. And then you typically provide the revenue growth rate by segment. I was just wondering if you had that and then if you have the the bill pay spread for the quarter. Thank you very much.
Speaker Change: Yeah, of course. Thanks for the question. So, yeah, if we just kind of look on Q4 guidance, I'm going to kind of start with True Blue, then walk us through. We've got a couple of items that I want to call out, and then I'll give it on a comparable basis. But when you're thinking about Q4 guidance, and I'm going to give midpoints here, Ryan, but True Blue's at minus 21.
Speaker Change: We also have Canada that's causing about a point of...
Speaker Change: a negative point of growth for True Blue and then two points of decline for People Ready, which will lapse as we get over those comps in Q1 here. And then also it's just a reminder our prior year Q4 had an extra week and that's creating a headwind of about six points in total on True Blue.
Speaker Change: So, to kind of take it back, for Q4, on a gap basis, midpoint of down 21% for True Blue, down 24% for People Ready.
Speaker Change: down 13% for People Management and down 30% for People Scout. When you take it on a comparable basis, those midpoints are down 14% for True Blue.
Speaker Change: down 15% for PeopleReady, down 7% for PeopleManagement, down 28% for PeopleScout.
Speaker Change: And then you also asked about bill pay spreads, just on bill pay spreads, so our pay rates were up about 1.5% while our bill rates were up 0.2% in our people-ready business.
Speaker Change: as I mentioned under prepared remarks that led to about a 60 basis points decline in margin. And as we've talked about on the last call, Ryan, we've seen our pay rate growth continue to moderate throughout the year. And this is from the all time highest that we experienced kind of post pandemic.
Speaker Change: We were in, you know, 10% pay rate growth in 21 that moderated to like
Speaker Change: 7% growth in 23 and now we're sitting at 1.5. We'd expect for this kind of same trend to continue in Q4 and we've seen that pay rate trend continue to get lower as well into October.
Speaker Change: Great, thank you very much.
Speaker Change: Thank you.
Speaker Change: Our next question comes from Mark Markon with Baird. Please state your question.
Mark Markon: Hey, good afternoon. I had a couple of
Mark Markon: wondering about hurricane impacts both in terms of
Mark Markon: negatives relative to positives obviously you know anybody who looks at one of your one of the maps
Speaker Change: you know, can see that there's a lot of people-ready branches around.
Speaker Change: Tampa and Sarasota so wondering you know how much disruption did you end up seeing and then sometimes you end up getting a lot of cleanup work how much cleanup work are you getting and how much how's that factoring into the guide
Speaker Change: Hi Mark, thank you for the question.
Speaker Change: As we're dealing with the hurricanes, our first priority is always to ensure the safety of our staff and provide support to our impacted team members in a situation like this, and be able to really resume operations just as quickly as possible, because we do play a critical role in the cleanup efforts in the communities in which we serve.
Speaker Change: People Ready provides on-demand support in disaster recovery efforts. We're currently working with more than 20 organizations that are focused on those cleanup efforts.
Speaker Change: In regards to Helene and Milton specifically, we were able to quickly resume operations in all impacted areas.
Speaker Change: Our branch office in Asheville, North Carolina was damaged, so the team is working from a mobile unit for business continuity in that area.
Speaker Change: And because the associate pool is quite limited in Asheville, we have brought in our traveling teams to meet the customer's needs and, again, be able to play the critical role of supporting the community.
Speaker Change: call it net neutral, slightly positive for us as we do those cleanup efforts that Taryn was talking about.
Speaker Change: These hurricanes did have a slight impact on Q3 and Q4 with...
Speaker Change: kind of both of them. There was about $700,000 for Q3 with Colleen and approximately a negative impact of about $900,000 for Milton in October here.
Speaker Change: And you don't think that the subsequent rebound in terms of all the work is going to be
Speaker Change: significantly more than what the negative was.
Speaker Change: We do, I mean if we look at all of these kind of over time it is again I would say it is net neutral to net positive depending on the impact and where our cleanup efforts are. We have those in our guides and we would start to see that over a longer period of time as those recoveries come in and that's that's included into our outlet.
Speaker Change: Okay.
Speaker Change: Can you talk a little bit about the renewables business? I mean you mentioned that it's slowed down and understandable in terms of the weather impacts, but how quickly do you expect that to resume, particularly now that it's getting a little bit cooler?
Speaker Change: I'll start. From a renewables perspective, you know, certainly our pipeline remains strong. We actually secured four new logos in our PeopleReady Renewable business for those large-scale utility solar projects in the quarter, which will bring revenue in 2025. So this is a lumpy business, but we still feel very confident in the mid- and long-term opportunity here. It was really a weather impact in a couple of states where we had some large sites and some hot weather.
Speaker Change: I would just say in addition to the people-ready renewable business that we've talked about historically
Speaker Change: Mark, we have started to see some wins outside of PeopleReady as well. Our people management business secured wins with a solar company that does solar panel manufacturing in New Mexico, so we're excited about that, as well as another new win where we'll provide skilled roles in solar and electrical and beyond.
Speaker Change: And then finally, PeopleScout had a recent win with a clean energy company to hire engineering roles. So as much as we continue to focus on the renewable business that we've talked about, we are starting to get some opportunities outside of that as well.
Mark Markon: Thanks and then lastly just with regards to the hospitality company
Speaker Change: It sounds like that's a broad-based move that they're making towards insourcing.
Speaker Change: Can you talk about what you're seeing with some of your other large clients just in terms of
Speaker Change: you know, discussions with them, how much of them are, you know, maintaining the contracts, but have
Speaker Change: And what are your net promoter scores or any other form of feedback? How's that trending with some of your existing?
Speaker Change: and RPO clients.
Speaker Change: Yeah, thanks for the question. This hospitality client was a unique business decision and I would call it an outlier from what we are experiencing and seeing from our other customers in terms of business strategy change to outsource or to insource rather for the long term.
Speaker Change: Across the rest of our customer base, we're seeing lower volumes.
Speaker Change: where recruiting volumes are extremely low, we do see clients take some of that outsource recruitment in-house, really in an effort to retain their in-house recruiting teams and keep them busy. And as we've been talking to these customers, we have the contract alive, we're staying close to them, and we fully expect to be part of their long-term solution once those volumes return and exceed the capacity of their in-house.
Speaker Change: recruiting teams. And we've seen this in prior cycles as well. Really by the nature of the RPO business, we are built to support our customers
Speaker Change: ability to scale up and down during various hiring volumes and we believe that RPO will return to
Speaker Change: historical growth rates. So we're getting great feedback from the customers. We check in with them regularly and we're certainly well positioned to support them as their needs change and expand.
Speaker Change: Thank you.
Speaker Change: Thank you.
Speaker Change: Our next question comes from Kartik Mehta with North Coast Research. Please state your question.
Speaker Change: Yeah, thanks Kartik for the question. You know, as I kind of mentioned, when we think about kind of October and our Q4 guides, October really trended in line with where those midpoint guides I gave earlier, so that's at like minus, you know, on a comparable basis, minus 14 for true blue, minus 15 for people ready.
Speaker Change: minus 7 for people management and minus 28 for PeopleScout. So right in line with our outlook and guidance.
Speaker Change: Hey Taryn, just curious to how your customers react, you know, maybe how business is trending because of the holiday season this year in December, kind of a odd day, you know, maybe taking out
Speaker Change: two weeks of business. I'm wondering if that is having any impact on your business.
Taryn Owen: Well, I would say that, you know, just overall from a customer sentiment perspective, there's
Speaker Change: Our customers just continue to communicate that it's an uncertain environment, they're using caution.
Speaker Change: workforce plans, you know, and as far as an inflection point, they're certainly looking for more certainty so they can feel confident in planning those workforce needs.
Speaker Change: Our best indicator is when our customers say that they need our help, and so we're staying highly engaged to ensure that we're well-positioned and we're really close to our customers around their workforce needs now and through the end of the year, and our guidance reflects that.
Mark Markon: Just one last question, Carl. I know we talked a little bit about this last quarter, which is...
Speaker Change: the leverage in the business, you know, you've taken some actions in the business to lower the cost and I'm wondering
Speaker Change: and when this industry gets back to kind of normalize and obviously you'll see some increased revenue growth. I'm wondering what type of incremental margins would you expect if let's say we get revenue growth of 10, 20%
Speaker Change: Yeah, thanks Kartik again for the question. So yeah, we are you know, I think we've done a really good job managing costs
Speaker Change: this year as we, you know, kind of guided to continued cost management. You know, we've taken out over 70 million of cost this year, and we do think it will lead to improved margins. I think we talked about this on the last call as well. But if you just took kind of a 10 percent revenue growth across.
Speaker Change: our business. We historically have kind of incremental margin of 15 to 20 percent. We feel like with the cost actions that we've made, we're going to be north of 20, call it 20 to 22, maybe even do a little bit better, depending on the segment where that comes in. But if you just took it across the kind of our model,
Speaker Change: You know, we'd look at anywhere from 30 to even 50 basis points of margin improvement to kind of historical margins.
Speaker Change: So we're pleased with the work we've done there, but still yet to see kind of that indication of
Speaker Change: that demand returning to those levels but when they do we'd expect for higher profitability than we've historically seen.
Speaker Change: safety scores.
Speaker Change: and our cross-selling efforts and wins have increased as well. Just a couple of examples from the quarter. We won a joint pursuit by PeopleReady and People Management to serve a scrap metal company.
Speaker Change: and PeopleScout just secured a new win serving a pharmaceutical client in partnership with our people management team. So the ability to break down some of these silos and have our teams working closer in collaboration has been a real benefit.
Speaker Change: perfect thank you very much
Speaker Change: Thanks, Karthik.
Speaker Change: Thank you and just a reminder to the audience ask a question press star 1 on your telephone keypad to remove yourself from the queue press star 2
Speaker Change: Our next question comes from Mark Riddick with Sidoti and Company. Please state your question.
Mark Riddick: Good evening.
Speaker Change: Good evening, Mark.
Mark Riddick: So I was wondering if we could talk a little bit about Jobstack and the commentary around the timing and how things are going with the rollout. And it certainly sounds like it's encouraging from an initial perspective. Maybe talk a little bit about, I guess the commentary wasn't being ahead of schedule. And then maybe you can sort of talk a little bit about what your initial pressures are, if there's any areas that as far as feedback that you're receiving that you can share there would be great. Thank you.
Speaker Change: our branch network and national account base, well ahead of schedule. Just as a reminder, this new version allows us to control our roadmap and quickly address our evolving user needs, both on the customer as well as the associate side. And we're already gaining some positive momentum from the initial launch with our enhanced ability to really quickly address their feedback.
Mark Riddick: and their needs. So I'll just give a couple of examples.
Speaker Change: First, we implemented a tech supply feature that makes it easier for our candidates to access our new app.
Speaker Change: which enhances their user experience and ultimately streamlines the job search process for them. And just in the first couple of months, we've seen an improvement to the adoption rate.
Speaker Change: as more candidates are turning to the app to engage with our services.
Speaker Change: And on the customer side, we've made an order extension feature more intuitive, making it easier for a customer to essentially extend an associate that is working on their customer site in a very easy and user-friendly way.
Speaker Change: As we move forward here, we have a robust roadmap that's really focused on features and functionality that is designed to enable growth for the organization. So we're really excited about it.
Speaker Change: and anxious to continue to build on this, on this asset.
Speaker Change: Excellent, and then I was sort of thinking about the, you know, maybe the sort of
Speaker Change: share some thoughts as to any of the, I think you prepared a remark, you made some commentary around certain areas and certain places that might be viewed as bright spots. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about maybe, is that industry-focused-wise, sector-focused-wise, or geographically, or where our bright spots are at this point.
Speaker Change: Yeah, I'll get us started. A couple that I would highlight is renewable. I mentioned earlier that, you know, we've continued to get some wins in the people-ready business as we prepare for further growth as we move forward here. And seeing some wins in this space in businesses outside of people-ready is something that we're really excited about.
Speaker Change: On the skilled side, we've had nice growth in our commercial trucking business, where we've seen some customer expansions and new logo wins there.
Speaker Change: and in health care. PeopleScout has secured six new wins in health care so far this year supporting a variety of clinical roles and we had a recent win in people management supporting a pharmaceutical company with with driver positions in health care.
Speaker Change: And then, finally, we've talked about our efforts to expand the roles we serve in PeopleScout to higher skilled placements, and so I'm happy to report that PeopleScout won a full-cycle RPO deal recently with a U.S.-based global technology firm, where we'll hire 250 professional and technical hires in their insurance services business in Australia, and we'll then move to further expand support in India, U.S., and beyond, so making some really good progress in that area as well.
Speaker Change: Okay, great. I guess that's it for me. Thank you. Thanks Mark. Thanks Mark.
Speaker Change: Thank you. And at this time, I'm showing no additional questions, so I'll hand it back to Taryn Owen for closing remarks. Thank you.
Taryn Owen: Thank you operator and thank you everyone for joining us today. I also want to take this opportunity to thank the entire True Blue team for their tremendous efforts in providing our customers and associates with exceptional service and for their commitment to advancing our mission to connect people and work.
Speaker Change: We look forward to speaking to you at upcoming investor events and on our next quarterly call. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to reach out. Have a great evening. Thank you.