The Conference Board held a media briefing about U.S. inflation trends, discussing key drivers and what to expect ahead. Experts said persistent pressures like labor shortages will continue to drive inflation. “We saw labor shortages driven by the pandemic, but now we are seeing labor shortages driven by a very low unemployment rate,” says Gad Levanon, head of The Conference Board’s Labor Market Institute. “Now, it is 3.9% and we could probably reach 3% by the end of the year, which will be a 70-year low. I think this is the new normal— even after the pandemic—a very tight labor market for the foreseeable future.” With a life-work balance, life literally comes first. Well-being is a top priority and employees will not compromise. In 2022, Harvard Business Review says more companies will use wellness as a metric to understand employees. A Gartner 2020 survey of 52 HR executives found that 94% of She-cession Desk and office-related promo can help women out of the “she-cession.” According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 3.5 million mothers with schoolaged children either took a leave, lost their job or left the job market. According to The New York Times, C. Nicole Mason, president and chief executive of the Institute for Women's Policy Research, called the disproportionate loss of jobs by women throughout the COVID-19 pandemic a "she-cession." Unlike previous economic crises where men bore the brunt, industries hardest hit by the pandemic—hospitality, education, health care, and travel—traditionally skew more female. Even with recent drops in jobless rates, women are still significantly 2.3 million jobs behind preCovid rates. The National Women's Law Center also estimates that it would take 30 months for women's employment levels to reach prepandemic rates. Campaigns with office-related promo could inspire women to rejoin the workforce or enhance the work-from-home experience. A survey about work-life balance conducted by Real Simple (which included 436 women respondents between the ages of 18 and 74), revealed that respondents had mixed feelings about remote work (some love the freedom, some find it monotonous) virtually none of them are interested in returning to working full-time in an office. | APRIL 2022 | 57 GROW
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