Taryn Owen: Yeah. So we are retaining our customers. It’s really around the volume in which they’re utilizing us. Some have gone to zero, but we’re under contract, and we remain engaged perhaps, again, with alternative solutions to help them right now. But definitely not a client retention issue as much as this is a hiring volume challenge on their side.
Mark Marcon: Okay. And then with regards to PeopleReady, can you just give us any regional differences or — and if we think about some of the areas that were hardest hit, anything on the horizon that you would see in terms of stabilization? So for example, with retail in terms of PeopleReady, what are you — how would you think about the balance of the year there?
Carl Schweihs: Yeah. I would say, if we kind of look back on the quarter, we’ve seen kind of similar results as we reported. Retail, obviously, was the most challenging end market for us, which has continued through this year, followed by kind of services and transportation, particularly in the PeopleReady business. You might also be just asking about state trends. Those look pretty close to the overall in the end markets as well as what we’ve seen in January. Just as a reminder, kind of our biggest geographic opportunities in PeopleReady, California, Florida, Texas, those make up just over 30% of our CTM business there in PeopleReady.
Taryn Owen: Yeah. And just to add to that, in Q4, PeopleReady wins were really dominated in construction and hospitality and that has — trend has continued as we’ve entered the first quarter here.
Mark Marcon: Great. Thank you very much.
Operator: Our next question is from Will Brunemann with Northcoast Research. Please proceed with your question.
Will Brunemann: Hey, guys. I just wanted — wondering, if you could provide a little bit more color. Are you guys seeing any changes in the competitive environment? And has the demand environment for the PeopleScout business changed at all?
Taryn Owen: In terms of the competitive environment, I wouldn’t say we’ve seen a change there. Certainly, as we look at our PeopleReady business, we compete with both small regional players and larger staffing firms. And we continue to compete well there with a combination of both our technology that we have to offer as well as our expansive market presence. And certainly, we’ve made some good advancements there with the launch of our new JobStack app. And I would say, similarly, in our other businesses, the competitive landscape has remained pretty consistent.
Will Brunemann: All right. Thank you guys.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from Marc Riddick with Sidoti & Company. Please proceed with your question.
Marc Riddick: Hi, good evening.
Carl Schweihs: Hi, Marc.
Taryn Owen: Hi, Marc.
Marc Riddick: So I was wondering if you could — given the announcement this morning, could maybe shed a little light on the transaction and sort of how that — or how that might register with the outlook commentary? And then I have a quick follow-up after that.
Taryn Owen: Marc, thank you for asking that question. If we just take a step back and look at what we’re focused on as an organization, number one, we’re focused on growth, execution and client delivery now as we navigate this challenging cycle with the agility and discipline that we’ve been talking about. But in addition to that, we have three strategic priorities. The first is to simplify our organization structure and the sale of the on-demand business for people ready in Canada is really part of that. Secondly, advancing our digital transformation across the enterprise and then finally, expanding our market presence into high-growth and underpenetrated markets. If we look at the focus around simplifying our org structure, we’ve made a number of strides here.
And some of our on-demand labor business in Canada really is allowing us to focus on our US operations, where we are an industry leader and make sure that we are focusing our — both kind of financials and human capitals on our highest growth opportunities. In addition to that, we’ve made some other strides in this area. We brought together our on-site businesses with CMOs and staff management under a single leadership to really help us maximize some of the synergistic opportunities between those two businesses. And then finally, we’re really working hard to better leverage the technology assets that we have across the entire organization. So an example of that is, we just started utilizing the technology that we have in our on-site business to support the growth and scale that we’re seeing in renewables.
So that sale of the Canadian business was really about just making sure we’re remaining laser-focused on simplifying the organization and in areas where we see long-term growth opportunity.
Carl Schweihs: And then, Marc, just to add on to what Taryn said, the Canadian operations are immaterial to both TrueBlue and to our PeopleReady’s operations from an outlook perspective. And as we close the deal here in Q1, we’ll share more going forward.
Marc Riddick: Great. And then I was wondering if you could — given the strength of the balance sheet, especially as you finished the year, I was wondering if you could sort of give us a bit of an update as far as views on — use of cash prioritization and whether or not acquisitions or the like is potentially on the table given the state of the industry? Thanks.
Carl Schweihs: Yes, thanks. In the current economic cycle, we’re focused on balancing ample liquidity, making our strategic investments, and we’ll return excess capital to shareholders via share repurchases. Just as a reminder, we’ve got $55 million under our current authorizations. But as those — we talked about kind of the strategic investments, virtually all those are still in capital investments in our technology. And then I’d also say, Marc, right now, we’re not actively pursuing acquisitions, but we’re interested in targets that can help diversify our hiring mix and as we enter high growth and resilient end market verticals.
