Speaker 1: We've got another angle on today's labor report. Uh, and
Speaker 1: you know what we saw, of course, you know the
Speaker 1: numbers coming in hotter than expected, revisions, higher wages. We're
Speaker 1: seeing that spike and wages continuing, which we know plays
Speaker 1: into overall inflation in the economy. Our next guest has
Speaker 1: some thoughts on why inflation is tougher actually on working women.
Speaker 1: So great to have back with us, Kataka Roy. She's
Speaker 1: CEO at Pipeline. They use AI to work with companies
Speaker 1: on gender biases, so they pull in all the data
Speaker 1: and she joins us on the phone from Paris. Kataka,
Speaker 1: good to be talking with you again. Tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about your perspective on what's going on in
Speaker 1: the labor market, especially when it comes to women. Yeah, Carol,
Speaker 1: thank you, it's great to be here. You know what
Speaker 1: we saw in today's jobs report is that across all
Speaker 1: cohorts of women, they've actually lost jobs. And since the
Speaker 1: beginning of the pandemic, we actually have one point eight
Speaker 1: million women missing from the labor force. And if we
Speaker 1: brought those one point eight million women back, we could
Speaker 1: actually close uh, the the the the gap of workers
Speaker 1: by almost a quarter. And so we could actually make
Speaker 1: our jobs market a little less hot Kataka. To be fair,
Speaker 1: I do think we're all trying to figure out why
Speaker 1: so many women and men are staying away from the
Speaker 1: labor force. We talked about the available labor pool, right,
Speaker 1: this is so participation. You know, it's been down coming
Speaker 1: off of the pandemic. What are the reasons that women
Speaker 1: in particular are not coming back. Yeah, we have a
Speaker 1: couple of reasons. You know. One is you know, certainly
Speaker 1: Childcrison talked about and that is part of the solution,
Speaker 1: but it's not the only solution. There are two pieces.
Speaker 1: One is actually equity in the labor force, and so
Speaker 1: this goes beyond pay but actually ensuring that they have
Speaker 1: equity of opportunity. Just to give you one example, women
Speaker 1: are fifty eight percent of college graduate percent of the
Speaker 1: labor force, and yet only eight percent of the fortune
Speaker 1: five d CEO. That's one. The other piece is skilling.
Speaker 1: So we actually leaked forward five years in terms of
Speaker 1: digital acceleration during the pandemic. So the jobs that existed
Speaker 1: at the beginning of that pandemic, yeah, don't necessarily exist
Speaker 1: right now. So we've got a mismatch between skills that
Speaker 1: companies need and the actual available workers. And so if
Speaker 1: we skilled folks and ensured equitable skilling that is, equitable
Speaker 1: access to skilling, but also the ability to apply those skills,
Speaker 1: we could close that gap exclosure quickly. May Kodak, I
Speaker 1: guess you're My question would be, what would you recommend
Speaker 1: to policymakers given the data that you have and what
Speaker 1: you know, like, how do we fix this from a
Speaker 1: policy perspective? Well, you know, certainly the pay transparency laws
Speaker 1: that have both gone into effect and are slated to
Speaker 1: go into effect in the first of the year step
Speaker 1: in the right direction. Okay, Well, let's let's break down
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here, because not everyone knows what
Speaker 1: those mean. You're talking about you know, recently a New
Speaker 1: York City about a month ago, jobs that were posted
Speaker 1: for certain companies had to include some sort of pay range.
Speaker 1: Is that what you're referring to? Exactly? So on jobs postings,
Speaker 1: Colorado was the first state to do that in the
Speaker 1: New York City. Uh is the is the second area
Speaker 1: to do them that We've got three more states that
Speaker 1: will go live with that on January feet So that's
Speaker 1: exactly what I'm talking about. And so it's a step
Speaker 1: in the right direction in terms of putting guard rails up.
Speaker 1: But what we really need from polishy makers is true
Speaker 1: equal pay, and we don't have that in the United States.
Speaker 1: That is actually ensuring that we're paying people equitably and
Speaker 1: that companies are proving that they're paying people equitably. And
Speaker 1: that's not only an issue of fairness, it's actually an
Speaker 1: issue of economic growth. Because if we closed the gender
Speaker 1: pay gap in the United States, we could close the
Speaker 1: gender we could we could add five twelve billion to
Speaker 1: the U. S economy. And every American taxpayer subsidizes the
Speaker 1: pay gaps because women in particular are more likely to
Speaker 1: rely on social welfare programs. Kataka one thing I don't
Speaker 1: kind of get. And if if we're relying on policy makers,
Speaker 1: it may take a little while to get that parody right.
Speaker 1: I feel like we've been waiting for a long long
Speaker 1: time already, so you know that to me continues to
Speaker 1: be a slow process. But what about the private sector,
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking about corporations. We see E s G
Speaker 1: policies put being put out in a big way, d
Speaker 1: E I policies being put out in a big way.
Speaker 1: So what's the onus actually on the private sector and
Speaker 1: companies to really move more aggressively on party. You work
Speaker 1: with companies, you look at their data points. What's the
Speaker 1: conversations that you're having as to why or what you're
Speaker 1: hearing is to why companies aren't being kind of better
Speaker 1: when it comes to making sure there's parody, especially on
Speaker 1: pay an opportunity for men and women. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: great question. The the the the issue isn't awareness in
Speaker 1: the execution. So about percent of companies put equity in
Speaker 1: their top priorities. The only the issue has been only
Speaker 1: of employees regularly see it shared and measured. So it's
Speaker 1: really a different between employer branding and the employee experience
Speaker 1: and and what pipeline the company that High Run is
Speaker 1: designed to do is to actually close that gamp, which
Speaker 1: is to get ahead of the decisions that companies were making,
Speaker 1: but to actually insure that they Yeah, no, I listen
Speaker 1: to what you say, Kada like this high idea, Like
Speaker 1: they have the awareness that's pretty high, But it's the execution.
Speaker 1: And I know this is what you help companies do,
Speaker 1: but why aren't they executing if they see the data
Speaker 1: they understand just got about thirty seconds left here. Why
Speaker 1: aren't they doing it? I think in the past they
Speaker 1: haven't had the tools and the systems to actually do that,
Speaker 1: and now they do with companies like Pipeline, and we
Speaker 1: actually now just in the last month, UM expanded our
Speaker 1: offerings to companies that have two hundred or more employees
Speaker 1: as well as they can get a free equity baseline report.
Speaker 1: So if there's not even a cost to it right now, alright,
Speaker 1: We're gonna leave it on that note. Kodaka. Always good
Speaker 1: to catch up with you, Kardaka Roy. She is chief
Speaker 1: executive officer founder of Pipeline. John Gus on the phone
Speaker 1: from Paris