Gord Johnston: Ian, I think the one area that we are continuing to look at is the Nordics. And we have no presence up there currently. So we — in addition to building out the footprint that we have now in Germany, we are still looking to see if there’s an entry for us up into the Nordics.
Ian Gillies: Okay. That’s helpful. Thanks very much. I will turn it back over.
Gord Johnston: Great. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question or comment comes from the line of Sabahat Khan from RBC. Mr. Khan, Your line is now open.
Sabahat Khan: Great. Thanks and good morning. I was hoping, as we look ahead to ’24 and into ’25, you can maybe give us some perspective on sort of the price and volume mix. Presumably, pricing was quite high over the last few years. Is it fair to assume that volume is becoming a bigger contributor? And how are the pricing discussions going with some of your customers as new work is up for bid and — or like places where you’re looking to get price increases? Thanks.
Gord Johnston: Yes. So a couple of things there. Thanks, Sabahat. The — as we think about pricing, certainly, we are able to reflect in our pricing the increases that we see from — for the most part, from salary increases. You can see that because project margins continue to stay the same or even increase a little bit. So what we are hearing from clients now is, of course, there’s always price sensitivity in our business. But clients that we are talking to now are more concerned about schedule. Can you get the work done within the time frame that I require? Of course, with high-quality is still important, but of course, pricing is still important, but it’s really the schedule is the primary driver right now. So that gives us and the overall industry a little bit of opportunity to be some tailwinds on pricing.
Again, it’s still a competitive space. No one gets to right their own ticket. But I think we do have some opportunities for some tailwinds to pricing over the next several years.
Sabahat Khan: I guess then just a follow-up to that. Presumably, you’re able to reallocate staff across regions, and then you leverage our international centers. But are there any areas of your business where you are seeing a bit of labor tightness or you’re more focused on or having because demand might be outpacing supply?
Gord Johnston: Yes, not really. We — and where there is a lot of great demand like in Water, for example, we are so strong in Water that we continue to attract sort of the best and brightest there. So where there is a little bit of additional tightness, we are very strong. So yes, there’s no particular areas that I can think of, Saba that are of concern for us.
Sabahat Khan: Okay. And then just one last quick one. I guess, there’s this view out there that the ramp up in IIJA is expected over the next 12 to 18 months. Can you maybe talk about the end markets where you are starting to see some of that money show up in customer hands and where the kind of the RFQs and RFPs are getting going? Just trying to get a perspective of which end markets we could see some acceleration in the U.S. for yourself and maybe even the broader industry. Thanks.
Gord Johnston: Yes, yes. And so we are starting to see primarily in the transportation space with the department of — the state departments of transportation and so on, local and municipal government as well. So we see that ramp up in Transportation. We are starting to see some in Water as well. But when you look at the overall IIJA funding, the majority of it is transportation related. So I think we’ll see a gradual run up in Transportation. Here you’ve seen that state DOT budgets are up roughly 12% already this year, in part, that will be through IIJA. So we’ll see that ramp up into the second half of this year and hold steady for the next several years and Water kind of coming along as well, but of course, at a smaller level, supported by IIJA. But still Water very, very robust due to the other drivers that we’re seeing there.
Sabahat Khan: Great. Thanks very much.
Gord Johnston: Great. Thanks, Sabahat.
Operator: Thank you. I’m showing no additional questions in the queue at this time. I’d like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Johnston for any closing remarks.
Gord Johnston: Great. Well, thank you, operator, and thanks, everyone, for joining us this morning. And in follow-up, should you have any questions, please contact Jess Nieukerk, our VP of Investor Relations. He’s always available to take your call. Thank you.
Theresa Jang: Thank you.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today’s conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a wonderful day.
