ManpowerGroup

constant currency to $596 million. The APME region continues to perform relatively well during this crisis. Excluding restructuring charges and prior year gain on the China IPO, OUP margin decreased 90 basis points. All of the $1.5 million of restructuring costs involve Australia, where we continue to simplify the business after exiting certain low margin staffing clients. Revenue growth in Japan was up 5% on a constant currency basis, and after adjusting for billing days, this represented a 6% growth rate, which was equal to the growth rate in the second quarter. Our Japan business continues to perform very well, and we expect a revenue trend of flat to low single digit growth in the fourth quarter. Revenues in Australia declined 7% in constant currency on a days adjusted basis. This represented a significant improvement from the 21% decline in the second quarter as we anniversary the exiting of certain low margin business. Revenue and other markets in Asia Pacific Middle East declined 10% in constant currency. I'll now turn to cash flow and balance sheet. Free cash flow equaled 685 million for the first nine months of the year. This compared to underlying free cash flow in the prior year of 356 million after excluding the sale of the France CICE receivable. During the third quarter, free cash flow equaled 108 million compared to 206 million in the prior year quarter. At quarter end, day sales outstanding decreased by about three days. Collection activities continue to be one of our top priorities. Capital expenditures represented 31 million during the first nine months of the year. We did not purchase any shares of stock during the third quarter, and our year-to-date purchases stand at 871,000 shares of stock for 64 million. As of September 30th, we have 5.9 million shares remaining for repurchase under the six million share program approved in August of 2019. Our balance sheet was strong at quarter end with cash of 1.59 billion and total debt of 1.09 billion, resulting in a net cash position of 500 million. Our debt ratios remain comfortable at quarter end with gross debt to trailing 12 months EBITDA of 2.21 and total debt to total capitalization at 29%. Our debt and credit facility did not change in the quarter and the earliest Euronote maturity is not until September of 2022. In addition, our revolving credit facility for 600 million remained unused. Next, I'll review our outlook for the fourth quarter of 2020. Our guidance continues to assume no material lockdowns impacting economic activity in any of our largest markets. On that basis, we are forecasting earnings per share for the fourth quarter to be in the range of $1.06 to $1.14, which includes a favorable impact from foreign currency of 3 cents per share. Our constant currency revenue guidance range is between a decline of 10% to a decline of 12%. The midpoint of our constant currency guidance a decline of 11 percent, also reflects the organic days-adjusted rate of decline, as billing days for Q4 are only very slightly higher year over year, and the impact of net dispositions is also very slight. This represents an improvement of about 4 percent from the organic days-adjusted constant currency decline of 15 percent in the third quarter. We expect our operating profit margin during the fourth quarter to be down 130 basis points compared to the prior year. This reflects continued strong cost actions, but at lower levels of year-over-year SG&A reductions as activity levels progressively increase. We expect our income tax rate in the fourth quarter to approximate 39%, which continues to reflect an outsized impact of the French business tax effect that I discussed in previous quarters. Late September, the government of France issued their preliminary budget for 2021. France is planning to reduce the French business tax, known as CVAE, by 50% in 2021. If the budget is approved as drafted, this would improve our pre-crisis level global effective tax rate by 3% to 3.5%. This improvement in the effective tax rate would be partially offset by higher compensation costs attributed to profit-sharing schemes in France. Additionally, France has indicated that they continue with their multi-year corporate tax reform schedule, which is expected to separately reduce the France corporate tax rate by about 3% next year, and the impact to the consolidated effective tax rate is a reduction between 50 and 75 basis points. I will give a further update on the anticipated impacts from these items at our fourth quarter earnings call after the French budget is formally approved by the government. As usual, our guidance does not incorporate restructuring charges or additional share repurchases, and we estimate our weighted average shares to be 58.6 million. I will now turn it back to Jonas.

Thank you, Jack. We're very well positioned to leverage the lasting legacy of the pandemic. New work models with more flexible and remote work more focus on health and well-being, greater use of technology and faster changing skill shifts, and the need for strategic and operational workforce transformation at scale and speed. Let me also say how incredibly proud I am of the critical work our talent and teams have provided by helping people and companies around the world respond and reset following these unprecedented crises. from redeploying and reskilling catering and hospitality workers, to new roles in in-demand sectors like logistics, virtual customer service, and pharmaceuticals, to redeploying financial programmers to install and program COVID testing robots, and providing the skilled IT talent, lab technicians, and skilled workers for PPE production. We have remained steadfast in our purpose and committed to providing our clients candidates, and our communities around the world with skilled talent and meaningful employment, all with health and safety at the center. And I thank all of our people for their expertise, professionalism, and dedication when so many of them are managing their own personal challenges in these unprecedented times. We can be certain, too, that helping people adapt from declining industries and jobs to growth sectors and future-proof roles will be critical in this next normal. And it will be the responsibility of business, government, and educators to support people with swift, targeted upskilling programs so that value creation is shared with the many, not just with the few, for the benefit of us all. At MAMPAR Group, we're fully committed to being part of the solution, and the actions we're taking to digitize, diversify, and innovate will position our company for further success in 2021 and beyond. I would now like to open the call for Q&A. Operator?

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, please press star 1. Please unmute your phone and record your name clearly and slowly once prompted. Your name is needed to introduce your question. And to cancel your request, please press star 2. One moment please for our first question. Our first question came from the line of Andrew Steinerman of JP Morgan. Your line is now open.

Hi, it's Andrew. I'm hoping this isn't an in-play question. So, Jack, when you started talking about fourth quarter guide, you said no material lockdowns impacting economic activities is your assumption. And so my question is, what did you mean by that? Did you mean that the lockdowns don't get worse? or that the current lockdowns aren't having a meaningful impact on economic activity? Like, for example, our French economist is expecting zero real GDP in France in the fourth quarter. How does that square with the assumption that you're making? Are you assuming, again, worse lockdowns or current lockdowns are not having an impact?

Yeah, thank you, Andrew, and good morning. I would say really it's the latter. The current lockdowns, we are obviously talking with our French business and analyzing the impact of the current lockdowns. But on our business specifically, the current lockdowns are not having a significant impact. So our business is continuing. They're adopting to the new restrictions in place. and it's not currently having an impact in terms of the way we're looking at the current trends and the way we've done our guidance. So I'd say it's been factored in. What we're really trying to say is we're not seeing any additional changes beyond that. Really, we're getting more towards the risk of more countrywide lockdowns, and that's the risk that We don't have incorporated into our guidance, but it is incorporating the current restrictions that we are operating within our countries today.

That's super clear. Can I just add on? When you talk about fourth quarter France being down 10% to 15% for the fourth quarter guide, is that what you're already seeing in October? Yes.

That trend reflects what we're seeing in October. I think what, you know, Andrew, in terms of our analysis of France, you know, we did indicate great improvement in the third quarter, but the rate is slowing down. So we are seeing a slowing rate, and our guidance incorporates that that will continue to improve, but at, you know, at the level now, which is a slower rate of improvement, but that's what we're anticipating in October. reflects, you know, a slightly better trend than we saw in September.

Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you. And our next question came from the line of Manav Patnik of Barclays. Your line is now open.

Thank you. I just had a broader question. You know, I think earlier in the call, Jonas talked about, you know, TEM being, you know, a flexible option for an uneven recovery situation. I was just wondering in terms of that fine line of uncertainty, what are you hearing from your employers right now in terms of their plans of scaling up versus just waiting it out to another year or so?

Good morning, Manav. What we're hearing from our clients today is that they're seeing their activities return, but their horizon in terms of how long, how durable, and to what degree that improvement is likely to continue means that they are very interested in operational flexibility. And I think that's exactly reflected in our Q3 results, which was a faster recovery than we had anticipated. And as Jack just has indicated, of course, looking ahead, we expect that rate of improvement to continue, although at a slightly slower rate. And that is very consistent with what we tend to see in recoveries after recessions, where services and solutions are in high demand as the operations are improving, the demand is improving, but there's a degree of uncertainty that means that employers are really favoring our services. And to that I would add what was very encouraging also in Q3 is to see the quite significant improvement in our permanent recruitment numbers that moved up quite significantly down from you know, from a minus 43% in Q2 up to a minus 27% in Q3. And we saw that reflected also in our PO operations. So companies are clearly not only looking for contingent staff to help them, but also starting to, you know, want to employ some people also on a permanent basis. And we think that's a trend that will also continue going into the fourth quarter.

Got it. That's helpful. And, you know, throughout the call, there was a lot of real estate optimization. I guess globally you've done a lot of that. You know, you've done this over the past years as well. Was this current wave, you know, more a factor of, you know, work from home or lack of activity? Or maybe ask another way, how much of this is permanent and how much do you maybe ramp up when things get back to normal?

Well, you could hear me say in the prepared remarks that we've had some learnings from the pandemic, and I would say our confidence in our strategy around real estate optimization that you've seen us do over many years now is really reaffirmed by what we're seeing and living under here during the pandemic. We can operate and run our business very effectively on a remote basis. Now, whilst we don't anticipate that we'll be going fully remote and we believe that there is great value in our last mile business, delivery capabilities through our office network, what's also clear is that with the help of process change supported by technology, we can do our work in different ways. And we anticipate that that will accelerate in terms of what our candidates are accepting and wanting to see, as well as what our clients are expecting and wanting to see, which will give us further opportunities for real estate reviews. And you're seeing some of the early signs of that in the third quarter.

All right, thanks a lot, guys. Appreciate it.

Thanks, Manav. Thank you. And our next question came from the line of Hamza Mazari of Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Hey, good morning. Jonas, I think you talked about a two-speed recovery in your prepared comments. Could you maybe talk about how much of your business is levered to, you know, faster growth versus... industries that may take a while to recover, travel, leisure, et cetera?

Thanks, Hamza. Yes, our exposure to the most heavily negatively impacted industries is very low because we're not really represented in the hospitality industry aside from some countries. So at large, I would say we're better positioned on the faster growing industries rather than those most heavily impacted by the pandemic.

And I would just add on to that, Hamza. I think maybe a little bit more detail in terms of the sectors. So I would say manufacturing, to Jonas' comments, is about core manufacturing is probably about 40% of our business today. Within that, we've talked about auto being in the range of around 7% currently. Food and beverage has been very strong. That's about 7%. Pharma within that is about 6%. Manufacturing of computers and electronics, about 6%. So all other manufacturing, about 14% of that 40%. I'd say logistics, transportation, and storage is about 8%. That's been very, very strong. Construction is about 5%. So it gives you a little bit of flavor on some of the manufacturing sectors. I think on the... Communications, that's been very strong for us. That's about 10%. Financial services and insurance is about 5% to 10% for us as well. So it gives you a bit of a feel. And, you know, as Jonas said, our exposure to hospitality and tourism is very, very small.

That's extremely helpful. And just my follow-up question, I'll turn it over. Could you maybe talk about the furlough dynamic, this employment cycle, and how you see that impacting temp growth? Historically, your business coming out of a downturn recovered as quickly, really, as it went down. And so just any thoughts, high level, as to the furlough dynamic? I know you provided Q4 guidance, but sort of just a longer-term question on this dynamic. Thank you.

We think the furlough dynamic that we've seen during this pandemic has a short-term positive effect in terms of keeping people on the payroll. And frankly, from our perspective, it's something that we've been able to use as well to maintain our productivity levels as high as possible as activity went down. But then, of course, also provided us with the opportunity to ramp up quickly once we saw demand pick up again. So from that aspect, it's been positive. In terms of structural change long-term compared to other recessions, we don't really think that this will play in any significant way. We have a timing effect where companies are bringing back furloughed workers first, but if so, we think it's going to be just a lag effect in some countries. And frankly, we have not seen that so far be a factor in the speed of recovery matching the pickup of demand that we've seen with our clients.

Got it. Thank you so much.

Thank you. And our next question is from the line of Jeff Silber of BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Thanks so much. Jonas, you just touched upon my question a little bit in your answer, but I wanted to drill down a little bit further. You talked before about how your customers are dealing with their own staffing requirements in terms of the rebound. Can you talk about your own internal staff, where that stands now relative to pre-pandemic, and are you expecting to increase that over the next few quarters?

Well, let Jack talk about some of the numbers, but specifically in terms of You know, government-assisted furlough programs, by and large, we're now out of the usage of those in most countries, with the exception of Germany, but we expect to fade out of those programs over the next two quarters. And as I mentioned in my response to Hamza, what we've done is really use those programs to mitigate the drop in demand during the depth of the pandemic, but then very quickly bring people back onto our rolls and... we saw productivity maintain and then move up so we could meet the demand. But Jack, maybe a few more aspects to that.

Yeah, Jeff, I'd be happy to give you a little more detail around that. So at the end of September, if you look at our FTEs year over year, we're down about 11%. And I would say, to put that in context, that is lower than it was at the end of June. At the end of June, we were down about 18%. So As I talked about when I talked to the trends in our SG&A, we have been bringing people back based on the increased demand that we've been seeing in our businesses. And our guidance in Q4 continues to anticipate that. Now, with that being said, if there is any changes to the trajectory, we'll make adjustments accordingly. But we are continuing to manage our FTE very carefully. I think, you know, separately we talked through the restructuring actions we've taken this quarter that will reduce some of our FTEs permanently. Based on that, we've talked a lot about the real estate actions we've taken as well that will go a long way in reducing some of our fixed costs as well. But hopefully that gives you a bit of a flavor on where we are on FTEs.

Yeah, that's actually extremely helpful. And for a follow-up, Also in your prepared remarks, you talked a bit about what was happening towards the end of the quarter and the beginning of this quarter in France. Are there any other major trends that you can highlight in some of your larger countries in terms of how you ended 3Q and how 4Q has begun?

Yeah, sure. I would say the trend in France is pretty similar to what we've seen in, I'd say, our top three countries. U.S., we saw a nice, steady improvement over the pace of the third quarter. We're seeing that improvement continue here into early October. But I'd say, you know, the comments about slowing, you know, that applies to the U.S. as well. So great improvement during the third quarter, but that trend of improvement continuing but slowing, and that's factored into our overall guidance. I would say the same for Italy. You know, very, very strong improvement, and we see trends in October that indicate continued improvement into the fourth quarter. I would say on the UK, it's been a bit more sluggish. The UK has not seen the same level of improvement. I don't think that's a surprise based on some of the data on the UK and some of the uncertainty in that market currently. And then I would say the other large country would be Japan, which is continuing to see phenomenal growth in a very difficult environment. I'm very pleased with their growth in Q3, and we anticipate good performance in the fourth quarter as well, although slowing a little bit, but we're still anticipating closer to flat to very slight in Japan. So that's what I would say in terms of the top five countries. Okay, that's really helpful. Thanks so much.

Thank you. And our next question is from the line of Mark Marcon of Baird. Your line is now open.

Good morning, Jonas and Jack. I was wondering if you could drill down a little bit in the U.S. in terms of coming off of the bottom, just comparing and contrasting the recovery in terms of manpower brand versus experience and how the trends have unfolded and what you're seeing and how you think that plays out over the coming quarter, and then I have a follow-up. Thank you.

Good morning, Mark. Yeah, we saw good recovery in Q3 with really a quick improvement from the minus 35% decline in manpower. So, you know, we, as Jack just indicated, you know, expect to see a continued improvement into Q4, but at a slower rate. Talent solutions really came back very strong, and you heard us talk in our prepared remarks about the strength and right management from an outplacement perspective, from an MSP perspective, continued good growth, and a very, very strong rebound from RPO that now is at a much better position with a very strong pipeline that we expect to continue to perform very well for us into the coming quarters. And then Experis, you know, as we had expected, could still see some overhang from some enterprise clients and projects, and we talked about this in the Q2, but overall performing to our expectations with more opportunity as we look ahead there as well.

Jonas, can you talk a little bit more about Experis just in terms of how the monthly trends have unfolded and, you know, have you kind of hit a bottom there and it's starting to bounce back or – should it stay at these levels? And to what extent is that primarily driven by specific clients that you have exposure to relative to what you would anticipate the overall industry is doing in terms of whether it's IT or F&A?

Mark, I can add a little more detail on that. So I'd say Looking at experience, we went from minus 12% in Q2 to minus 16.5% constant currency in Q3. So what we said at the end of Q2 is we were starting to see select enterprise clients. There was some slowdown, mainly due to some projects that were expiring. Some of that was actually COVID-19-related projects. And we saw that as we exited the second quarter, and we anticipated that that would run through the third quarter and pull the rate down a bit. So that was anticipated. I would say it really is a couple of select clients. I would say that that work was lower margin in the scheme of things. Experis US actually expanded their GP margin in the third quarter year over year, which was great to see. So margin is holding up very, very well in the Experis business. And I would say what we're seeing now going into the fourth quarter is it's holding pretty steady. And so I think our anticipated guidance for the U.S. for the fourth quarter is steady improvement, and we're expecting a slight improvement in experience as well.

Great. And then from a longer-term perspective, can you talk a little bit about – the anticipation in terms of the, you mentioned the lockdown activities in France. Is it your general expectation that the lockdowns will be targeted across all of Europe in the same manner and how you're thinking about that? And then specifically in France, Jack, can you talk a little bit more about the French tax rate in 21? Because that seems like a real positive.

Mark, what we're seeing across Europe are different forms of lockdowns depending on the country. You've seen Ireland just implement a pretty significant lockdown posture for the next two weeks. But overall, we believe that the governments are trying to implement targeted social distancing lockdown measures today. to avoid having to resort to the more wholesale material lockdowns that we saw in the spring because they were very damaging to the economy. And based on what we've seen, and I just came back from a long trip in Europe visiting all of our major markets, all governments have indicated that their desire is not to return and their intent is to do everything possible not to return to the wholesale lockdown approach that they had in the spring, but rather affect the spread of the virus by controlling the socializing aspects that appears to be the main source of the spread of the disease by shutting bars, reducing hours when people socialize outside of their home, and things like that. So that's really what we're expecting, and I think it is reasonable, unless things take a dramatic turn for the worse, across the continent, but that's what we'll see in most major European economies.

And, Mark, on the CVAE or the French business tax, you know, I think – I guess the way I would, you know, phrase that is it's easier to put it in perspective when you think about our pre-crisis effective tax rate. And so we've talked about a pre-crisis effective tax rate around 34 percent. That was our original guide for 2020 before the crisis. We know that the French business tax has an outsized impact, and we've been obviously above that rate. But if you think about that 34%, we've always said the French business tax is about 6% to 7% of the 34%. It really has a significant impact on our global effective tax rate. And the French government's indication that they're looking to reduce that by 50%. But think of that, you know, 6% to 7% will really be reduced by about 3% to 3.5%. And so that's a good way to think of it. I think as we are operating here in 2020 at reduced levels of profitability, the French business tax has temporarily had an outsized impact. So that's been much greater than the 6% to 7% this year that we talked about in previous quarters, although it is improving. So as we go forward, I would think that reduction is going to help that outsized impact, and it will lower our effective tax rate if it's approved as currently drafted.

Perfect. Thank you.

Thanks, Mike.

Thank you. And our next question is from the line of Kevin McVey of Credit Suisse. Your line is now open.

Great. Thanks. Hey, Jack or Eunice, give us a sense of just the trends in the gross margin. It seems like the professional's been stronger than maybe some of the lesser skills, but it seems like the margins year on year, there's obviously still some pressure there. Maybe help us understand what's driving that.

Yeah, Kevin, I'd be happy to. I actually wouldn't say that. I would say that margin has held up fairly well overall this year, and that actually has been a positive due to What we've been seeing in terms of the staffing margin in our businesses, and you can see on the GP bridge that staffing margins actually held up quite well, and we've seen that pretty consistently over the last couple quarters. We did call out we did have a positive benefit from some direct cost accrual adjustments, and we put that to the side in our GP margin walk. But I would say on both the manpower and the experience business, we've actually seen pretty stable margin. We've acknowledged the shift to the enterprise client, but I think in the scheme of things, if you look at our staffing margin, it's actually held up very well year over year. So I would say when we look at some of our largest countries, You know, the U.S. margin has gone up year over year. GP margin. Japan has gone up year over year. Canada, France has gone up year over year. So we're seeing actually pretty stable conditions from a, you know, in terms of the trend that we're seeing going into the fourth quarter on some of the staffing margins.

Got it. And then just Jack, any thoughts on buyback? I know you paused at the quarter. Do you feel comfortable kind of re-engaging or how are you thinking about that?

Yeah, I guess, Kevin, I'd say when it comes to capital allocation, our strategy has not changed. I think looking back at when we ended the last quarter, we were pretty open that we were still early on in the recovery. and we're very focused on the balance sheet and balance sheet strength. I think as we sit here today, I would say we have a very, very strong balance sheet. We're very well positioned, and we don't preannounce share repurchases, but you could expect that we'd be very focused on capital allocation in the fourth quarter, and I'll leave it at that.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. And our next question is from the line of George Tong of Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

Hi, thanks. Good morning. You talked about seeing a relatively uneven recovery across businesses and geographies. Can you provide constant currency revenue trends by month during the quarter and in October to date for the overall company as well as your largest markets, France, Spain, the U.S.?

Yeah, definitely. George, this is Jack. I guess I'll help you a little bit on that. I think in terms of the monthly trends, we did add some of that detail last time, but I guess with the improvement that we've seen and with the guidance, we did pull back on some of that just to limit the time of our prepared remarks. But what I would say, if you look at the quarterly trend during the course of the quarter, We would start on a consolidated basis. July was probably about minus 19% organic, days adjusted. August and September were both around minus 13%. I think August is always a little bit of a funny month due to the holidays, so I wouldn't read anything into that trend. I think the main trend is we started at minus 19% and we ended closer to minus 13, minus 13.5% on an ADR basis. So good underlying improvement over the course of the quarter overall. I'd say in October on an overall basis, I think we gave an indication of what we were seeing in our largest businesses as part of our prepared remarks. I guess what I would say is you should expect that that minus 13.5% that we saw for the month of September we'll see slight improvement going into October. And that gives you a pretty good idea of what we're looking at currently.

Got it. That's helpful. And then on the margin side, you talked about funding investments while exercising cost controls. Can you elaborate on what your investment spending initiatives look like for Q as well as what's already baked into your guide?

Yeah, George, I'd say, you know, first and foremost, We've been very consistent in discussing our technology initiatives. So we continue to spend on technology. We've talked in the past regarding our PowerSuite initiatives. Those are going very well. We're making a lot of progress. Those continued. We have not slowed those down. So that continues to be in our cost base. I would say as we continue to look at where we're spending, we are positioning ourselves for the growth. So where we're seeing good increases in demand and kind of going back to my comments regarding FTEs coming back into the business, we are investing in the business and specifically in terms of where we see the most demand. We've talked about our experience business in the past. We continue to make those investments in those markets where there is strong demand and we're seeing good progress. So that is part of what is incorporated into our fourth quarter guidance as well. And I would say that would follow what you would expect in terms of the progress we're seeing in our largest markets. That's where you should expect that there is some incremental investment happening in those areas where skills are in demand.

Got it. Very helpful. Thank you.

Thank you. And our next question is from the line of Seth Weber of RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Hey, good morning, guys. Hey, Jack, just following up on that last answer and tying together a couple of your prior answers just on capital allocation. You know, a lot of discussion around building out the digital space capabilities. You're sitting here with a net cash balance sheet. Can we expect that there might be some more M&A on the digital side to enhance that part of the business? Is that an option that you're considering as well in addition to repo?

Yes, Seth. I guess I would say that's really what we were talking about when we were saying the strategy really hasn't changed. I think we've been very open that We continue to look at our capital allocation strategy. We have a very good track record on share repurchases, but we also, you know, we've talked about the fact that as part of our diversification, we do keep, you know, we do keep an eye out for potential acquisitions where they make sense. Now, with that being said, you know, we've also, we always have been very careful in that regard, and we're focused on the opportunities that from a professional staffing side as well as from a solution side. So that's really unchanged, and that is something that we continue to have as part of our overall strategy in capital allocation. And if there isn't an acquisition, then you should expect that we would continue to look at shareware purchases as a main vehicle to return cash to our shareholders.

Okay, and then just a follow-up on the talent solutions. It sounds like there's some good trends going on there. Is that all U.S., or are you starting to see any more traction internationally on that side of the business?

Well, Seth, we're certainly seeing it in the U.S., but we're really seeing it also across the world, maybe to a lesser degree at this stage. But we feel very good about the positioning. And as you heard in our prepared remarks, we've been recognized as the global leader in TAPFIN. And our pipeline looks strong on that side. RPO is coming back strong. And, of course, Wright Management has also had a very good quarter within especially the career transition offering. So we feel good about Talent Solutions as a whole and our positioning there. And it's really tying back to what Jack just said around diversification. and how we feel good about our strategy around diversification, and that it's really benefited us, and it's come back strong here in the third quarter, and we hope to continue to see some good improvement also into the fourth quarter.

The only other color I'd give on that, Seth, is right management. The majority of that increase was in the U.S., so the U.S. is the market where we've seen the outplacement activity that has not transpired in Europe. So when we think about the increase in right management that we talked about, the majority of that fell in the U.S., and that was part of that 30% increase in right management in the U.S. that I referred to earlier.

That's helpful, guys. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

And at this point, we don't have any more questions on queue.

Great. Thank you. That brings us to the end of our Q3 earnings call. We look forward to speaking with all of you again for our fourth quarter earnings call in January. Thanks, everyone, and have a good rest of the week.

Thank you. And this does conclude today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect. Music playing Bye. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll be right back. So,