You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: We'll start by going through some of the highlights of the quarter.
Then Jack will go through the operating results in the segments, our balance sheet and cash flow and guidance for the first quarter.
I will then share some concluding thoughts before we start our Q&A session.
But before we proceed, Jack will now cover the safe harbor language.
These statements are based on management's current expectations or beliefs.
During our earnings call in October, we talked about signs of recovery in the third quarter.
Pleased to say we saw this trend of slow and steady recovery continuing into the fourth quarter.
Despite experiencing a series of new COVID-19-related restrictions around the world, our results reflect a stronger market environment than we had anticipated with revenue growth and new opportunities in select markets.
We're now seeing clear signs of a case shaped to speed recovery.
The bifurcation is evident between industries able to adjust to the uncertain environment than others like travel, hospitality and entertainment industries being significantly impacted by the lockdowns.
This is also reflected in the labor market divide where demand for workers has improved in some industries and in others remain stalled with high unemployment rates.
Organizations investing in digitization and automation are already emerging stronger.
And that is driving an acceleration in the polarization of the workforce between the skilled and the unskilled, creating a risk of continued post-pandemic skills-based polarization of labor markets in many countries.
This is also captured in our recent Skills Revolution thought leadership series, Renew, Reskill and Redeploy, conducted across 26,000 employers in 40-plus countries.
Those companies that plan to speed up the digitization plans as a result of the pandemic are maintaining or increasing their headcount in contrast to others who've put their plans on hold.
Many of the trends we've been predicting have accelerated significantly.
Adversity can often be a force for society to change at an accelerated pace.
Companies have digitized better speed and scale they could never have imagined and we expect these actions will continue into 2021.
With that context, I would now like to turn to our financial results.
In the fourth quarter, revenue was $5.1 billion, down 6% year-over-year in constant currency, a significant improvement from the 14% decline in the third quarter on the same basis.
On a reported basis, we recorded an operating profit for the quarter of $138 million.
Excluding restructuring charges, operating profit was $151 million, down 24% in constant currency.
Reported operating profit margin was 2.7%, down 100 basis points from the prior year.
And after excluding restructuring, operating profit margin was 3%, down 70 basis points from the prior year.
Reported earnings per diluted share of $1.33 reflects the impact of restructuring charges.
Excluding the restructuring charges, our earnings per diluted share was $1.48 for the quarter, representing a decrease of 39% in constant currency.
Turning to the full year results for a moment.
Reported earnings per share for the year was $0.41.
Excluding restructuring charges and special items, earnings per share was $3.67 and represented a constant currency decrease of 53% year-over-year.
Revenues for the year decreased 14% in constant currency to $18 billion and reported operating profit was $188 million.
Excluding restructuring and special items, operating profit was $377 million, which represented a 48% constant currency decline year-over-year.
Although 2020 was one of the most challenging years in recent history, we were able to reduce operational SG&A to significantly offset gross profit declines while remaining committed to our strategic investments for digitization, diversification and innovation.
In our Manpower business, logistics demand was strong in the fourth quarter driven by the shift in how consumers are buying and an extended holiday delivery peak.
While we are seeing increases -- increasing cases of COVID-19 in several places, we're also seeing strong safety protocols, increased testing advanced by technology, allowing companies to avoid full shutdowns, manage plant productivity by segregating production lines, all reducing the infection risks and ensuring a safe work environment.
In Experis, our IT and resourcing and solutions business, we're seeing positive trends in many industries.
And there continues to be good demand for a range of IT skills in a number of markets.
Many organizations that put investments on hold or made cuts in 2020 are beginning to rebuild and reinvest.
Others are seeking the offerings of our Talent Solutions business as they look to optimize their supplier management and delivery solutions and shift more to full-service HR providers with the tools and tech across markets to build just-in-case resilience and flexibility.
Going back to the quarterly results on slide three, revenues in the fourth quarter came in above our constant currency guidance range.
Our gross profit margin came in at the low end of our guidance range.
On a reported basis, our operating profit was $138 million.
Excluding restructuring charges, our operating profit was $151 million, representing a decline of 21% or a decline of 24% on a constant currency basis.
This resulted in an operating profit margin of 3% before restructuring charges, which was above the high end of our guidance.
Breaking our revenue trend down into a bit more detail.
After adjusting for the positive impact of currency of about 4%, our constant currency revenue declined about 6.5%, which rounds to 6% on a single-digit percentage basis.
As acquisition and billing days had no net effects, the organic days adjusted revenue decline was also about 6.5%.
This represented an improvement from the third quarter revenue decline of 15% on a similar basis and two consecutive quarters of significant improvement from the second quarter of 2020.
Turning to the earnings per share bridge on slide five.
On a reported basis, earnings per share was $1.33, which included the restructuring charges of $12 million, which, including related tax impacts, represented a negative $0.15.
Excluding the restructuring charges, earnings per share was $1.48, which exceeded our guidance range.
Included within this result was improved operational performance of $0.38; better-than-expected foreign currency exchange rates, which added $0.03; a lower weighted average share count from share repurchases that added $0.02, offset by higher other expenses that had a negative impact of $0.05.
Looking at our gross profit margin in detail.
Our gross margin came in at 15.8%.
Underlying staffing margin contributed to a 40 basis points reduction.
The anniversary of the incremental fee-owned subsidies in France in October and the mix of higher seasonal year-end enterprise activity within the Manpower brand drove the overall additional year-over-year staffing margin decline from the third quarter result of down 20 basis points year-over-year.
A lower contribution from permanent recruitment also contributed 30 basis points of GP margin reduction.
10 basis points of increased gross profit margin from career transition growth within Right Management was offset by a 10 basis point decline driven by a higher mix of seasonal other nonstaffing activity.
Next, let's review our gross profit by business line.
During the quarter, the Manpower brand comprised 65% of gross profit, our Experis Professional business comprised 20% and Talent Solutions brand comprised 15%.
During the quarter, our Manpower brand reported an organic constant currency gross profit decrease of 11%.
This was an improvement from the 17% decline in the third quarter.
Gross profit in our Experis brand declined 14% year-over-year during the quarter on an organic constant currency basis, which represented an improvement from the 19% decline in the third quarter.
The lower contribution from perm gross profit drove a more significant gross profit decline compared to the revenue decline in Experis.
Talent Solutions includes our global market-leading RPO, MSP and Right Management offerings.
Organic gross profit crossed back over to growth in the quarter at 1% in constant currency year-over-year, which is an improvement from the 2% decline in the third quarter.
This was primarily driven by our MSP business, which had a very strong fourth quarter with double-digit GP growth and increased year-over-year career transition activity within our Right Management business.
Our RPO business experienced a significant improvement in the rate of decline during the fourth quarter from the third quarter, reaching single-digit percentage declines in the fourth quarter.
Our reported SG&A expense in the quarter was $661 million, including the restructuring charges of $12 million.
Excluding the restructuring charges, SG&A of $649 million represented a decrease of $19 million from the prior year.
This underlying decrease was driven by $40 million of operational cost reductions, a decrease of $2 million from net dispositions, partially offset by an increase of $22 million from currency changes.
On an organic constant currency basis, excluding restructuring, SG&A expenses decreased 6% year-over-year, which represented a very strong recovery against the 10% gross profit decline.
SG&A expenses as a percentage of revenue continued to improve sequentially and represented 12.8% in the fourth quarter, excluding restructuring.
The Americas segment comprised 20% of consolidated revenue.
Revenue in the quarter was $1 billion, a decrease of 3% in constant currency.
OUP was $48 million and OUP margin was 4.7%.
The U.S. is the largest country in the Americas segment, comprising 61% of segment revenues.
Revenues in the U.S. was $622 million, representing a decrease of 4% compared to the prior year.
Adjusting for franchise acquisitions, this represented a 5% decrease, which is a significant improvement from the 16% decline in the third quarter.
During the quarter, OUP for our U.S. business decreased 11% to $30 million.
OUP margin was 4.8%.
The U.S. continued to benefit from higher-margin career transition activity within Right Management year-over-year but at a reduced level from the third quarter.
Within the U.S., the Manpower brand comprised 36% of gross profit during the quarter.
Revenue for the Manpower brand in the U.S. was down 2% when adjusted for days and franchise acquisitions, which reflects a material improvement from the 21% decline in the third quarter.
We expect the Manpower business to cross over to growth on a quarterly basis in Q1.
The Experis brand in the U.S. comprised 27% of gross profit in the quarter.
Within Experis in the U.S., IT skills comprised approximately 80% of revenues.
Revenues within our IT vertical within Experis U.S. declined 13% during the quarter and total Experis U.S. revenues declined 14% as the finance and engineering verticals experienced greater decreases.
This trend reflects a slight improvement from the third quarter year-over-year rate of revenue decline.
Talent Solutions in the U.S. contributed 37% of gross profit and experienced revenue growth of 6% in the quarter.
Within Right Management in the U.S., revenues increased 8% year-over-year driven by career transition activity during the quarter.
MSP business continues to perform very well in the current environment and again experienced year-over-year increased revenues during the fourth quarter.
The U.S. RPO business crossed back over to revenue growth during the fourth quarter, moving to a low double-digit revenue increase driven by RPO client wins as well as additional projects during the fourth quarter.
Provided there are no significant business restrictions impacting our clients across the U.S., in the first quarter, we expect ongoing improvement in an overall rate of decline in the very low single digits for the quarter overall.
Our Mexico operation experienced a revenue decline of 6% in constant currency in the quarter, representing an improvement from the 9% decline in the third quarter.
During the fourth quarter, the President of Mexico introduced the labor proposal that would prohibit certain types of temporary staffing outside of specialized services.
If enacted, we expect this could significantly restrict our activity in Mexico.
The bill is still under development in the Mexican legislator and could be finalized in March or April.
We will provide an update during the first quarter earnings call, at which time we expect to have greater clarity on the likelihood of adoption and the specific restrictions as they would apply to us.
Mexico represented between 2.5% and 3% of our global revenues in 2020.
Revenue in Canada declined 10% in constant currency during the quarter.
This represented a slight improvement from the third quarter billing days adjusted revenue decline of 11%.
Revenue in the other countries within Americas crossed back over to growth with a 4% increase in constant currency, reflecting a significant improvement from the 6% decline in the third quarter.
This was driven by significant revenue growth in Argentina, Brazil and Chile.
Southern Europe revenue comprised 46% of consolidated revenue in the quarter.
Revenue in Southern Europe came in at $2.3 billion, a decrease of 7% in constant currency.
This is a significant improvement from the third quarter trend driven by France, Italy and Spain.
OUP, including restructuring costs, equaled $100 million.
Excluding restructuring costs, OUP decreased 25% from the prior year in constant currency and OUP margin was down 100 basis points.
The $4 million in restructuring costs represented France real estate optimization.
France revenue comprised 56% of the Southern Europe segment in the quarter and was down 11% from the prior year in constant currency.
This reflects a steady rate of improvement over the course of the quarter.
OUP, including restructuring costs, was $62 million in the quarter.
Excluding restructuring costs, OUP was $66 million and OUP margin was 5%.
Although improvement was steady in France during the fourth quarter, January has experienced a softening in the revenue trend as COVID-19 concerns have increased and the government has imposed more restrictions.
We are cautiously estimating ongoing sequential improvement in the revenue trend and are estimating a constant currency decline in revenues in the mid-single-digit percentage range in the first quarter overall.
Revenue in Italy equaled $423 million in the quarter as Italy crossed back over to growth.
Revenues increased 3% in constant currency during the quarter, which was a significant improvement from the 12% days-adjusted decline in the third quarter.
This reflects a progressive improvement over the course of the quarter and a particularly strong December driven by large year-end seasonal logistics activity from enterprise clients.
OUP declined 25% year-over-year in constant currency to $24 million and OUP margin decreased 200 basis points to 5.6%.
We estimate that Italy will have low single-digit year-over-year revenue growth in the first quarter.
Revenue in Spain also crossed over to significant revenue growth in the fourth quarter also driven by enterprise seasonal activity.
Revenue increased 18% on a days-adjusted constant currency basis from the prior year in the quarter.
This represented a significant improvement from the 6% decrease in the third quarter.
Considering the drop-off of the year-end seasonal activity, we estimate that Spain will have revenue growth in the mid-single-digit constant currency range in the first quarter.
Revenue in Switzerland decreased 14% on a days-adjusted constant currency basis from the prior year in the quarter.
This represents a slight decline from the 13% decrease in the third quarter as our Switzerland business did not experience the year-end seasonal increases that the other large markets in Southern Europe experienced.
Our Northern Europe segment comprised 22% of consolidated revenue in the quarter.
Revenue declined 11% in constant currency to $1.1 billion, representing a significant improvement from the 22% decline in the third quarter driven by the U.K. and the Netherlands.
OUP, including restructuring costs, represented $9 million.
Excluding restructuring costs, OUP was $18 million and OUP margin was 1.6%.
The $9 million in restructuring cost relates to Germany, where we restructured a majority-owned venture with a third-party partner.
Our largest market in Northern Europe segment is the U.K., which represented 36% of segment revenue in the quarter.
During the quarter, U.K. revenues decreased 7% in constant currency, which represented a significant improvement from the 22% decline in the third quarter.
The improvement was driven by significant year-end public sector activity particularly in December.
We are cautious in our outlook for the U.K. business and estimate a rate of constant currency revenue decline in the high single digits range during the first quarter, representing the nonrecurrence of certain year-end activity.
In Germany, revenues declined 31% in constant currency adjusted for billing days in the fourth quarter, which did not represent a significant change from the 32% decline in the third quarter.
We remain very cautious on our Germany business in the near term and expect improvement in the revenue trend in the first quarter.
In the Nordics, revenues declined 6% on a days-adjusted constant currency basis.
The two primary businesses in Nordics are Norway and Sweden.
On a days-adjusted constant currency basis, Norway experienced a decline of 6% and Sweden declined 4%.
Both countries experienced a significant improvement in the rate of decline from the third quarter trend.
Revenues in the Netherlands decreased 12% on a days-adjusted constant currency basis, which represents a significant improvement from the third quarter decline of 23%.
Belgium experienced a days-adjusted revenue decline of 25% in constant currency during the quarter, which also reflects improvement from the third quarter trend.
Other markets in Northern Europe crossed over to growth in the quarter.
Revenue increased 9% in constant currency, which represents a significant improvement from the third quarter decrease of 5% in constant currency.
This was driven by strong revenue growth in Poland, Russia and Ireland.
The Asia Pacific Middle East segment comprises 12% of total company revenue.
In the quarter, revenue decreased 1% in constant currency to $617 million.
OUP represented $18 million and OUP margin decreased 70 basis points year-over-year.
Revenue growth in Japan was up 5% on a constant currency basis, which represents a slight decrease from the 6% growth rate in the third quarter.
Our Japan business continues to perform very well.
And we expect the constant currency revenue trend of low single-digit growth in the first quarter.
Revenues in Australia declined 2% in constant currency on a days-adjusted basis.
This represents an improvement from the 7% decline in the third quarter.
Revenue in other markets in Asia Pacific Middle East declined 7% in constant currency, also representing an improving trend from the third quarter.
I'll now turn to cash flow and balance sheet.
Free cash flow equaled $886 million for the year.
During the fourth quarter, free cash flow equaled $201 million compared to $302 million in the prior year quarter.
At quarter end, days sales outstanding decreased by about 3.5 days to 54 days.
Our businesses have displayed outstanding collection and cash management practices throughout this crisis.
Capital expenditures represented $51 million during 2020.
During the fourth quarter, we purchased 2.5 million shares of stock for $201 million.
Our purchases for the full year totaled 3.4 million shares for $265 million.
As of December 31, we have 3.4 million shares remaining for repurchase under the six million share program approved in August of 2019.
As previously announced, we also increased the semiannual dividend paid in December 2020 by 7.3%.
Our balance sheet was strong at quarter end with cash of $1.57 billion and total debt of $1.12 billion, resulting in a net cash position of $443 million.
Our debt ratios remain comfortable at quarter end, with total gross debt to trailing 12 months adjusted EBITDA of 2.48 and total debt to total capitalization at 31%.
Our debt and credit facilities have not changed in the quarter and the earliest euro note 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 first quarter of 2021.
Our guidance continues to assume no material additional lockdowns or business restrictions impacting our clients in any of our largest markets beyond those that exist today.
On that basis, we are cautiously forecasting earnings per share for the first quarter to be in the range of $0.64 to $0.72, which includes a favorable impact from foreign currency of $0.07 per share.
Our constant currency revenue guidance range is between a decline of 4% to a decline of 6%.
The midpoint of our constant currency guidance is a decline of 5%.
On a days-adjusted basis, we note there is about one less billing day in Q1, which would improve the days-adjusted rate of revenue decline.
This is offset slightly by the impact of net dispositions.
At the midpoint, this would yield an organic days-adjusted rate of revenue decline of 3% for the first quarter, representing an ongoing improvement from the 6.5% decline in Q4.
We expect our operating profit margin during the first quarter to be down 50 basis points compared to the prior year, reflecting a third consecutive quarter of sequential improvement in the year-over-year rate of adjusted operating margin decline.
This reflects continued strong underlying cost actions within the businesses and higher corporate expenses year-over-year based on increased technology investment.
Regarding the effective tax rate, the government of France finalized their budget with the expected 50% reduction in the French business tax and a continuation of the corporate income tax reductions.
Combined, this serves to reduce our underlying effective tax rate by about 4%.
However, we will continue to have an elevated tax rate until we are closer to precrisis levels of pre-tax earnings and are estimating a full year 2021 effective tax rate of approximately 35%.
The effective tax rate in the first quarter will be slightly lower at 34% based on the inclusion of certain discrete items.
As usual, our guidance does not incorporate restructuring charges or additional share repurchases.
And we estimate our weighted average shares to be 56.2 million.
We're well positioned to be able to provide the strategic and operational workforce expertise and flexibility our clients and candidates are looking for: sourcing and developing in-demand talent across the globe and delivering new work models across the HR solution spectrum.
We strengthened our brand portfolio during 2020 and launched Talent Solutions as a separate brand to include our RPO, MSP and Right Management offerings.
This accelerates our diversification strategy by focusing on higher-margin, high-growth market segments in all brands.
We also remain laser-focused on delivering our digitization plans with our PowerSuite technology and continued this investment even during the pandemic.
We have already implemented PowerSuite in our front office and in businesses across 17 countries, are in the process of implementation in another wave of businesses across 17 more countries.
Based on this progress, we expect to have the majority of our businesses on our New PowerSuite front office by the end of this year.
Our PowerSuite front office is improving efficiency and productivity enabled by technology by cloud, mobile and analytics.
We also continue to roll out our new web platform for candidates.
Our B2C digital investments build off the success of Mon Manpower, our French associate app, which has had more than 1.3 million downloads, the most downloaded and the most highly rated in the French market.
In France, 1/3 of our applicants are sourced via the app with an average of 150,000 active users a month enjoying a full portfolio of B2C services, including on-demand access to current targeted assignment opportunities, time management and payroll technology and other services, including online carpooling.
The success of this market-leading tool is helping us to scale and expand our B2C technology elsewhere as well.
We continue to invest in and advance our analytics capability, laying strong foundations for the creation of our data lake.
It will be our data science and database decision-making that will continue to create new value, helping clients better predict performance and supporting candidates so they know more about their skills and potential.
These, together with our investments in next-gen infrastructure programs, will continue to be critical enablers for the next step of our process transformation and growth.
And what we knew all along has been confirmed as well.
It is the combination of tech and our people-first approach, the talent, the skills and dedication of our teams with last-mile delivery capability that allows us to confidently manage uncertainty, volatility and collaborate remotely to deliver the solutions and talent organizations need while being more agile than we ever believe possible.
As we execute our strategic priorities, we remain committed to our values and broader purpose that meaningful, sustainable employment has the power to change the world.
As a member of the International Business Council, we have committed to the IBC's new stakeholder capitalism metrics developed by the Big four global accounting firms, focused on people, planet, prosperity and governance.
This important framework will enable our organization and others to be more explicit on our commitments and progress we're making to create long-term value to shareholders and operate a sustainable business model that addresses the long-term imperatives of society.
Our social impact report that we released in December is the demonstration of the critical role we already play in being part of the solution.
Case in point, in 2020, we were recognized as a catalyst for change among 70-plus companies, outpacing our global peers and advancing women, particularly women of color, along with being placed on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for the 12th year, helping people and companies respond and reset, redeploy and reskill.
And this skills revolution remains the defining challenge of our time.
And it is what our clients, candidates and employees expect us to help them with today and even more so in the future.
Finally, I'm very proud and grateful for the relentless resilience and commitment of our people to support and deliver to each of our stakeholders during these challenging times, our employees, associates, clients, shareholders and the communities in which we operate.
As digitization continues at pace, we're confident that our strategy is even more relevant as structural changes take hold in a post-pandemic world and as we continue to execute our strategy to diversify, digitize and innovate.
It is positioning ManpowerGroup for greater success, improved returns and profitable growth in the future.
I'd now like to open the call for Q&A.

user
sees q1 earnings per share $0.64 to $0.72.
q4 earnings per share $1.48 excluding items.
q4 earnings per share $1.33.
q4 revenue $5.1 billion versus refinitiv ibes estimate of $4.76 billion.
ended quarter with $1.6 billion of cash and cash equivalents and $600 million of untapped revolving credit facility.

assistant