Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). Your first question comes from Josh Vogel of Sidoti & Company. Your line is open, sir.
Josh Vogel - Sidoti & Company
Thank you for taking my questions. Peter, I may have missed it, but did you discuss the July revenue trends for the IT unit versus a year ago?
Peter Dameris
You know what, Josh we don't break it out by division, but what I will repeat is, we said that the first three weeks of '08 third quarter were $11.9 million, compared to the first three weeks of the third quarter of '07 being $10,995,000.
Josh Vogel - Sidoti & Company
965.
Peter Dameris
$965,000.
Josh Vogel - Sidoti & Company
Okay.
Peter Dameris
A pretty significant difference.
Josh Vogel - Sidoti & Company
Absolutely. We're seeing some competitors start to show a slowing in the IT market, they are actually posting low single-digit growth rates. And I was wondering if you think you can sustain the double-digit growth rate in Oxford for the remainder of the year?
Peter Dameris
Well, a couple of things, Josh, to address that. First of all, the strength of our business model is intact, as we give more data than anybody. No customer made up more than 2% of total IT revenue, but with that said, if you look at the growth rates in the third and fourth quarter of '07, they were 12.8% and 16.1% in '07. We have some difficult year-over-year comparables but we still feel, based on where our headcounts are right now and our weekly flash reports, that we're going to grow. We don't give specific growth rates by division, but we still feel that we are going to grow healthy for the year, and the back half of the year, considering where we are right now.
Josh Vogel - Sidoti & Company
Okay, thank you. And, now with the gross margin guidance, you are looking for it to be down a little bit sequentially. I was wondering, which segments you are expecting to see some contraction here, basically what was driving that, do you expect the bill/pay spread to tighten a little bit?
Peter Dameris
We are really not looking for a whole lot of tightening in the bill/pay spread. Really, what the guidance reflects is that we may see a little bit of an increase in the workers comp insurance expense. We saw a decrease in that this quarter, and in the IT area we are expecting we will see a little bit of compression in bill pay, but not really in the rest of the sectors.
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