metro markets where, uh, it's only, uh, going after a smaller, medium sized, uh, company. Very good. Thanks- thank you for that explanation. Uh, maybe just one, uh, perhaps for prevent Sprintlaw. Uh, I know you don't disclose gross- gross margin. Can you talk about trends there? If I look year over year, the split of manager IT versus consulting, uh, is 50, 50, of this 50, 50 a year ago as well. Um, but what are you seeing on the, on sort of a gross margin, underlying trends, um, and how is that contributing to the, uh, to the EBIT, uh, outperformance? Well, wi- with gross margin is- is- is very good, uh, and- and improving since, uh- uh, since, uh, last- last year. Uh, like, uh, George alluded before, uh, utilization is very high, uh, so like contributing to- to- to the, to the gross, uh, margin. So, uh, they'll continue to be, uh, pretty, uh, pretty good on it. And SG&A, uh, with- with, uh, the- the concentrate, the automation that we're pushing more and more. A- and offshoring up of some of the SG&A activities is also, uh, improving year over year. And that's why you see, uh, the- the EBIT improvement. Super thanks very much. I'll, uh, I'll pass the line. Your next question comes from Daniel Chan from TD Securities. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Um, good to see that you guys are still able to grow your team and your employee attrition rates are lower than the industry average. Any- any color on why you're able to achieve this? Is it because you guys are paying more or is it based on the locations where you're, uh, operating out of any color would be helpful? Sure. Uh, well, I think the- the- the biggest reason for kind where we, uh, where we're able to- to- to do that is our employee value proposition. Uh, it includes significant stock ownership, the 85%. Uh, the- the investments we've been making in career development, the 33% increase in training development around rescaling et cetera. These- these are really some of the, uh, the- the- the reasons that, uh, that we have this, including our community involvement. Um, it is really a- an attractor there. But- but it goes one step further, we- we recognize that we're in a, uh, a unique environment. And so, um, we really focused on a few areas that, uh, to- to keep that, um, not just about the- the attrition down, but also the attraction up. And, uh, and what we're doing on the attraction side is- is really focused on who we recruit, uh, where we recruit and, uh, and how we recruit. And I think that's, uh, some of where you were talking about the, who we recruit, uh, higher concentration on college hires and also trainees that are coming from nontraditional IT environments. So that's, uh, that's about 20% of our hires. Now we have boot camps that then build the digital skills that they need. Where we recruit, yeah- yeah proximity and, uh, and offshore, but also those onshore delivery centers. That's a better place to- to recruit for us, and, uh, and then a lower turnover rate. And we have 39% of our hires came from, uh, global delivery. And then it's how we recruit, I've mentioned before that, uh, a third of our people come through employee referrals. Uh, they're- they're stronger, uh, attraction to- to CGI, but the people that refer them have a higher retention rate as well. Uh, so we're really, uh, you know, we're really, uh, making sure that we invest to not just rest on the- the employee value prep- proposition that we have, but continue to, uh, to build in this, uh, current environment. Thanks for that George. Uh, as a follow up to that, given that 20% of your hires are from non-traditional IT, and, uh, from, uh, relatively junior members from college, would you say that the ramp up time for these employees might take a little bit longer than typical? Although we do put them through, uh, we do put them through boot camps, so there is, uh, a little bit of a ramp up. And, uh, yet this is what we're doing today, and you see that, uh, we're still able to, uh, to deliver the utilization and margins that you, uh, you see in our results in this quarter. And yet, uh, that's probably another lever as they, uh, as they come on board to, uh, to- to increase, uh, the- the utilization and margin going forward. Okay. That makes sense. From… So you mentioned that you model, um, revenue synergies into your IP acquisitions, where it's typically you've typically looked to leverage, uh, value from cost synergies. How about market, uh, metro market modeling side two? When you're looking at metro market acquisitions, are you also starting to model in revenue synergies, given your view to bring in additional services, uh, as you make these acquisitions? Uh, for sure. And especially, you know, uh, when- when, uh, we're- we're investing in- in, uh, metro markets where we're not necessarily there. Uh, so most of the time it's because we want to buy, uh, relationships also and with clients and new clients. And- and so… And that's what we did in the past and in some places, uh, so, uh, you know, sometimes these, uh, smaller firms will have good relationship with- with large clients, but not having the full capabilities that CGI has. And so by- by coming and- and- and doing this merger, we are bringing the capabilities, uh, to- to, uh, to this metro market and- and with the relationship that we just, uh, bought, you know, we're capable to have some revenue synergies there. Great. Thank you. Julie. I think we've got time for one more question, please. Perfect. Your next question comes from Jason Kupferberg from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Hey guys, this is Kathy Channon for Jason. Good morning. Uh, I'll just, you know, quickly slip into your questions. So my first one, I just wanted to ask, you guys obviously had pretty strong bookings this quarter. You know, I think it's the fourth quarter of like LTM book to bill, you know, greater than 1. 1. Can you just talk about, you know, very briefly, like the core drivers of this and the potential sustainability. So like, can we accept this trend to continue, you know, maybe at least for the next couple of quarters, given the strong demand from the environment that you guys, you know, are able to capitalize on. Thanks. Sure. Um, Kathy one- one of the, uh, areas I- I already talked about some of the investments that we're making to, uh… To drive some of the, uh, the new clients are particularly around the, uh, some of the- the digital skills and the global alliances, as well as the, uh, industry skills and, uh, some of the- the consulting growth. So that's, uh, that's one of the areas that's driving that is that, uh- uh, that mix of- of