Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Thank you. We are now ready to begin the question-and-answer session. (Operator instructions) Our first question comes from Tobey Sommer of SunTrust.
Frank Brown – SunTrust
Hi. This is Frank in for Tobey. Can you hear me?
Joe Boshart
Yes, Frank.
Frank Brown – SunTrust
I wanted to ask a little bit about some of these volume growth initiatives that you have and some of the levers that you are going to be working with to build that.
Joe Boshart
Yes, we have, particularly in one strategy we think has a lot of promise. Unfortunately, we probably have as many competitors listening to these calls than we have investors, Frank, so rather than be specific, I'll just say we have–we are taking action. We think the actions will have an impact. Certainly by the end of this year we believe we would expect to see the benefit of the actions we're taking, but until we do we won't know. There are times you execute well and the tide continues to go out and you don't see the benefit of it. But we believe the things that we can control we're moving forward on. We believe it will make us a more attractive employer for nurses that are currently engaged in the travel nurse market, and we think it will move the needle. But rather than be specific, we would rather let our actions speak louder than our words in describing what we're doing.
Frank Brown – SunTrust
Okay, great. And could you talk about maybe geographical areas of strength and weakness in terms of – you mentioned California and Arizona last quarter?
Joe Boshart
Yes. The weakest market by far is Florida right now. I've been doing this about 16 years, and I would say Florida is as weak as we've seen it during most of that period for a combination of reasons. Obviously, it’s probably one of the stronger housing markets that has been most impacted by the decline in the housing activity. The price of gasoline affects the number of visitors to Florida. So for a variety of reasons, the hospitals in Florida are not seeing strength in admissions, and most are seeing declines, and some are seeing significant declines in admissions year-over-year, and that has affected their desire and need for contract labor to meet the patient care demand.
California is by far and away the strongest market year over year of those that are significant to us. If you take out California from the national statistics, the demand for our service would be down in the kind of mid-single digits, but including California, today as a data point, it would be up about 5%. So California is relatively strong on a total order demand. But even when you look at California specifically, the strength is largely driven by one system of hospitals. Those hospitals historically have been among the more difficult to work with, so if you are seeing strength, that's not where you would want to see it. The Upper Midwest and the Northwest are relatively strong. The Northeast is directionally weaker than it was this time a year ago. The Southeast is directionally even weaker than that. Again, kind of as you go down the East Coast, it gets progressively weaker until you get to Florida. And again, as I said, Florida is not strong.
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