First quarter sales were 122% of budget, representing a 25% increase over the same period last year.
These results were driven by a 13% increase in trained Business Performance Advisors and a 10% improvement in sales efficiency.
Mid-market sales were particularly impressive throughout the period, core sales exceeded forecast for the full quarter despite a fall-off in March to 83% of budget as the pandemic escalated.
The best empirical evidence is our paid worksite employee decline in April, which was only 3.3% lower than March.
Our experience over the years with hurricanes and other disasters proved beneficial as we were totally prepared to work remotely on a broad basis with 93% of our employees working at home and only 7% of employees with the need to be at the workplace to accomplish their responsibilities.
Two days later, these reports became available on Insperity Premier and by Friday, the first day the banks began accepting applications, over 67% of Insperity clients had to run the necessary reports to submit their applications.
According to our survey, approximately 80% of our clients applied for a loan under the Paycheck Protection Program.
We are very pleased for our clients when survey results indicated 59% of these applicants receive their PPP funding in the first round before funds ran out on April 16.
This compares very favorably against the National Federation of Independent Business survey, which reported 20% of respondents had received their funding.
Since March 9, through the end of April, 25% of our clients have reported layoffs totaling approximately 22,000 employees or about 9% of the total worksite employee base.
35% of these layoffs were processed as permanent layoffs.
In 65% as furloughs or temporary layoffs expecting to be rehired in the coming months.
Approximately 15,000 of these layoffs were reported before the end of March with the remaining 7,000 in April as layoffs moderated.
Over the same period, we've already seen approximately 2,200 employees or 10% of the total rehired, which we believe is somewhat due to our early success with clients in the Paycheck Protection Program.
With all these factors in and finalized at the end of April, the result was the 3.3% reduction in paid worksite employees for the one -- that I mentioned earlier.
In this case, we assume about 65% of the furloughed employees would be rehired over the next couple of months in time for clients to include them in their calculation for loan forgiveness of their PPP loan.
Even though this is the high case, we are assuming 35% of furloughed employees did not return within that period as Business Leader stretch out their funds allowing time for the economic activity to increase.
New client sales considered within the high end of our guidance, assumes sales at 80% of our original budget over the balance of the year.
We have included an approximately 15% increase in worksite employee attrition from client terminations over our original budget.
In this case sales results are assumed to be approximately 60% of our original budget over the last three quarters in the year.
The low end of our range also anticipates a 20% higher level of worksite employee attrition due to client terminations above our original budget.
Full-year retention is expected to be 80% in this scenario.
One of my grandfather's was only 16 years old when he arrived in 1909.
We reported Q1 adjusted earnings per share of $1.70 at the high end of our forecasted range.
Adjusted EBITDA totaled $101 million for the quarter.
Average paid worksite employees increased by 5.5% over Q1 of 2019 to just over 238,000.
Gross profit increased by 3.2% over the first quarter of 2019.
As for large healthcare claim activity, we continue to see a decline in the number of claims over $100,000 since the initial spike in the second quarter of 2019, although it's still slightly elevated from a historical perspective.
Now an outlier in Q1 was a shift in the timing of approximately $4 million of pharmacy costs into the quarter.
As you may be aware, as a result of the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, many benefit plan participants across the country accelerated their pharmacy refills with many extending the refill period from 30 to 90 days.
So all things combine the good news is that benefit costs for Q1 of 2020 came in favorable when compared to our budget in spite of the additional $4 million of pharmacy costs.
Our first quarter adjusted operating expenses increased 5.3% over Q1 of 2019 below budgeted levels.
It's important to note that we continue to invest in our growth as we increased our trained BPA count by 13% over Q1 of 2019.
Finally, our Q1 effective tax rate came in at expected 27%, which was significantly higher than the 12% rate in Q1 of 2019 due to a lower tax benefit associated with the vesting of long-term incentive stock awards in Q1 of this year.
During the quarter, we repurchased a total of 878,000 shares at a cost of $61 million.
These repurchases included those shares bought in the open market and under our corporate 10b5-1 plan in mid-February and early March and shares repurchased in connection with tax withholdings upon the vesting of employee restricted shares.
We also paid $16 million in cash dividends under our regular dividend program and invested $16 million in capital expenditures.
While we continue to have a strong balance sheet and liquidity position in the latter part of the quarter, we drew down $100 million from our credit facility to provide further flexibility in this uncertain business environment.
So we ended the quarter with $167 million of adjusted cash and $130 million available under our $500 million credit facility.
And based on the details that Paul just shared on our expected worksite employee levels, we are now forecasting a 1% to 5% decrease in the average number of paid worksite employees for the Q2 stand-alone quarter and a 1% to 6% decrease for the full-year 2020 as compared to the 2019 periods.
For the full-year 2020, we are forecasting adjusted EBITDA in a range of $215 million to $250 million, which is flat to down 14% from 2019.
As for adjusted EPS, we are forecasting a range of $3.19 to $3.86.
And this assumes an effective tax rate of 28% in 2020 as compared to a rate of 20% in 2019.
Now as for our Q2 earnings guidance, we are forecasting adjusted EBITDA range of $65 million to $79 million, a 15% to 39% increase over Q2 of 2019 and adjusted earnings per share in a range of $1 to $1.29, an increase of 23% to 55%.

Summary:
We reported Q1 adjusted earnings per share of $1.70 at the high end of our forecasted range.
So we ended the quarter with $167 million of adjusted cash and $130 million available under our $500 million credit facility.
As for adjusted EPS, we are forecasting a range of $3.19 to $3.86.
Now as for our Q2 earnings guidance, we are forecasting adjusted EBITDA range of $65 million to $79 million, a 15% to 39% increase over Q2 of 2019 and adjusted earnings per share in a range of $1 to $1.29, an increase of 23% to 55%.