This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Well, we talk a lot about the tightening labor market, the Jolts survey, of course, and the way that people are thinking about the great resignation. There's so much going on when it comes to today's employment picture. Working Nation, by the way, founded by the former vice chairman of akam I Technologies. We're talking about our builder. It's a not for profit.
It's looking for solutions to the nation's changing labor needs. We've got a perfect guest. She is the president of Working Nation. She's Jane Oh. It's former U S Department of Labor official. She served as Assistant Secretary for the Employment and Training Administration during the Obama administration. She also was a former teacher and she joins us in her studio. Welcome, Thank you so much, Carol, nice to be here. Well,
it's great to have you here. And you guys are looking for solutions to really help others, you know, figure out better ways to figure out their labor needs um or make sure that they are current in terms of what are the labor needs of today? Tell us about what you think are because there are so many different
conversations that are going out about the labor force. Tim's right, great resignation, we're talking about hybrid, We're talking about you know, people just saying I've had enough, I'm going to do it differently. What are the trends that you think that really stick with us? So look, I think you have to look at the great resignation and remember that people are really examining their lives. They're trying to get a
better balance. But also if you just stop and think for a second, I mean, I don't want to I don't want to minimize four point four million people in the last Joultry Report quitting series high. No exaggeration there, that's that's a gigantic number. What are they quitting for more pay or just more flexibility or something else? I think some a little bit of everything. But for the biggest chunk I think are the class of twenty and
the class of twenty one. Think about that. If you have a sister or a cousin, a neighbor who graduated from a four year or graduate program in twenty or one, they couldn't find a job right in especially the labor mark, it was flat, so they went out and got something that was beneath their qualification, something that you didn't need
their degree for. I think this is them adjusting a lot, not that the whole four point four million, but a lot of it is that those two classes from high school to associate's degree to bachelor's degree and beyond them adjusting and going after a career instead of just a placeholder job. That is a really interesting take. That's not that one that I've thought of. So in a sense, we're going to see turnover be high because of that, at least at a for a very short period of time.
But you think it will kind of go back to where things traditionally are. I think it will go back to where we you know, to something who knows what the new normal is going to be. But I definitely think that those two bulk groups of people had a lot to do with the gigantic number in September. I want to ask you, this is something that Carol brings up all the time, the idea of people who perhaps will not return to the labor force after the pandemic.
When we do get to the other side of this pandemic, how should we be thinking about the definition of full employment or all the jobs recovered, uh that we lost during the pandemic. And Kathleen Hayes, who follows the economy, who's much smarter than me, that on this I said, I think it was like two million people have just
said I resign, I'm done. That's a disproportionately women. Yeah, and disproportionately if you take the women out and look at the full population, disproportionately workers outside of prime age fifty five and older, and a lot of them are having terrible times finding jobs and they're just deciding they'll live on their savings. They're not going to make it.
You know. If there are men and women who were basically you know, maybe semi retirement but saying I had a job as working and then the pandemic hit and they're just like, I'm done. I've got investments, I've got a pension. If they're lucky, markets done pretty well, markets downe really well, right, and just said I'm done well a lot of them. What I like is they're going
to nonprofits. Like there's this really cool nonprofit based in l A called Encourse them and it encourages people who have like math skills in their careers to come back and teach middle school and high school math. I love the program, and I think there's programs like that all over the country where these fifty five and olders who do have the money to retire are going back and taking a second career with a nonprofit where money isn't
an issue. They can work for less dollars. Well. And you know, we've also talked about and I've been working on something on our Bloomberg media side where it's it's women who are also starting their own businesses. We're seeing first of all, entrepreneurship startups at record levels, but women in particular, Like I've had it with the corporate culture, I don't have the flexibility I need. I'm not getting the recognition. Corporations still don't get women and saying I'm
going to do it on my own. No. I think that's exactly right. And I think, you know, people sometimes trivialize that and say, oh, it's baking cupcakes and going on Etsy. It's much more than that. A lot of women are really out there starting service kinds of things, helping people. You know, you think about how much we
all are dependent on scheduling. There's a lot of women out there who knew how to schedule in the corporate world, and they're going to go out and help other people and they're gonna make a lot of money doing it. Mersa Freeman and I'm giving a little tease of a Bloomberg Media event that we're doing, and she said, you know, corporations don't understand women have one calendar and this whole idea of that your work calendar or personal calendar. It's
not like this I separate these things. No, we are kind of the oldimate multitasker, and we've got to figure out how it all works in one calendar and folding your kids calendars right, like little weak practices and play dates, right, This is all part of our lives. Education it has been supposed to be the great leveler, right, the great opportunity for so many, But I think increasingly it's safe to say that education has gotten so expensive that it once again is kind of helping to widen the gap.
Even though a lot of academic institutions provide scholarships and so and so forth. Still I think it's really problematic for a lot of people in terms of access. You're a teacher, like you understand the importance of education. How do we need to maybe disrupt education and maybe at all levels, but I'm also thinking about the higher you know, education level. Well, I think all education, post secondary education
institutions should be really nervous. Three consecutive years of enrollment decline, the public is starting to vote with their feet. I think the answer is embedding. Embedding industry recognized credentials into academics. Not anymore making it an either or, but saying you need to have digital skills. Whether you're a poetry major or a comparative religion major, you need to have digital skills.
So let's embed those credentials into your academic curriculum. What role does the government need to have when it comes to paying for higher education, Well, they need to in the K twelve space, they need to keep up with special education i d e. A Funding, and they need
to continue funding low income kids through Title one. In post secondary education, they have always really just on pell grants and amazing help to the poorest, you know, to make sure that education at any level is more affordable. I think they may need to put a little bit more money into institutional aid right now because so many institutions, particularly smaller institutions, rural institutions, tribal colleges, HBCUs Uh, they really got hit. Their tuition dependent most of them don't
have large endowments like the schools you think of. You know, we may need to help them. All right, we're gonna come back with Jane Oh. She's President Working Nation, former Assistant Secretary of Employment and Training during the Obama administration. Our conversation will continue right here on Bloomberg Business Week. Jane Oates is with as president of Working Nation. She's former Assistant Secretary for the Employment and Training Administration during
the Obama administration. A former teacher, as we mentioned earlier, she's still with us in our interactive broker studio. All Right, I just want to give a taste of some of the conversation we've been having when it comes to higher education colleges. Does it make sense that they're eight dollars a year? And I know there's great educational institutions out there, but holy moly, I know it's sounds like you're paying tuition. Carol. I am welcome to parents paying tuition, and I I
appreciate academia, I really do. I think it's a great envire for kids where they can just kind of go and study things. But I do wonder about you know, how many people it's not really accessible. And I know that there's assistance at the lower end, but there's a lot of people in the middle who I feel like it's tough. Well I think maybe, yeah, I think the middle class is getting frozen out of college. You know, they can't really the pell grant isn't there for them.
They they make a little bit too much money, or they don't have enough kids, and they can't they're not the the A plus student in the class, so they're not getting academic or or sports scholarships. They're they're caught with nothing. So that's another thing. There's lots of sports scholarships, forgive me, but there's not a lot of academic scholarships anymore,
which is like, what, Yeah, it's really hard. I think. Look, if you're going to go to a research one, a lot of the money from that institution has to go into doing research. And thank God for that, right, I mean, that's why we have the vaccines that we have, it's why we have the health improvements we have, it's why we have the new industry standards that we have quite frankly, but I think you know, the tier below research one has kept up with the research ones in terms of tuition,
and I think the public is now saying why. I mean, they're great employers. They colleges pay great salaries to their faculty, which they should, and have great benefits packages. But they're not going to be open. I think we're gonna see a lot of colleges sadly. It breaks my heart to say this not be able to make it. They made it through the pandemic because the administration gave them money to stay open. Then now so many of them are just really struggling. That's like a p s A for
you to give money to your alma mater. Maybe, though, I mean if people feel like they have a connection to it, yeah, well wait a minute. When there is there endowments that are billions and billions of dollars, So is it a place for learning and education or is it a financial company all of a sudden, Yeah, I think Look, I think that's valid. But to be honest with you, probably only ten percent of the colleges have
an endowment like you're talking about. They're the names that you would recognize the Ivy leagues, the great you know, state flagships and things like that. The majority people go to smaller colleges that some people haven't even heard of, that are fabulous institutions where they're getting great educations. What they have to do is start to parlay that into something connected with work so that middle class kids go
there and say, here's what I'm going to spend. I hope it's not eighty thousand, but if it's going to be fifty thousand at the very least, what's my r O I? What what am I going to get in terms of turning next? I'm sorry, my you're what's my return on investment? You know? Am I getting attachment to an employer? Am I getting a paid internship? Even if it's something that's not paid, like am I want to go into like I did policy, I'd like to get
an internship on the hill. Is the school helping me get make that kind of connection, then that's a return on investment. So what's the best way for somebody who perhaps is in college right now or will be graduating soon to to think about how they can find something or study something that will be applicable to them throughout their careers. Well, I would say anybody should take pull up, you know, a minor in something like data analytics, some
kind of something to give them data visualization. They don't have to major in it if they don't want to, but they need to get familiar with it. And really, I can't say enough. They should be out there getting work experience. The people at the college, most of them went and got their PhD s straight through and didn't work outside of academia. They can't really help them figure out the world of work. They need to get out
there and figure it out on their own. What are companies what's the role of companies more specifically in terms of making sure that we have the right workforce for the future demands. I think there's some companies out there that are doing amazing things. I'll pivot from what I was just saying, students should look at internships. I can't believe the growth in paid internships in corporate America. You know some companies that have been doing it for a
long time. We have a great internship program. I was, you know, I was gonna say, how many interns does Bloomberg have? He's always been about this, But you know, Lockheed Martin, I mean and and Lockheed Martin. When west Bush was there. He's been going about eighteen months now, but I mean when he was there, they did about eight percent of their new hires came from their intern pool. That's a really good thing for kids to know. But I think other college I think of other businesses. You know,
you probably had Nick pinchuk on from snap one. They Snap one has been great in the lower end careers, you know, kind of a blue collar skilled trades kinds of things. He pays for material at colleges. He put together a program called NC three that has a training program for the community college faculty that are doing automotive so that it's quality controlled across every college. It's fabulous.
What about though, making sure? I mean I say this as a parent, like to my daughter, and you want to come back and live in New York City, it's an expensive place to live. You've grown up a certain way, you like, you know, like you need to think about your income. And I hate to say that because I was lucky enough to do something I love, you know, and things have worked out pretty nicely. But what what's
the response. It's ability to have companies to make sure that they have the future workforce and provide internships, but also pay more than a living way. It's like, where are we on that? I think we still have a lot of work to do there. I mean, I think entry level, why not share the wealth? Well, I agree with that, but I mean I think a lot of
people see entry level workers as expendable. You know, there's big name companies that have come out and said we think we get everything out of a worker in three years. So if they want to leave no loss to us, that's a bad That is really a And you notice I'm not naming them on your show, but I mean, oh, if you could see the level above my head anyway, go ahead, you know, but if they would invest in people, give them the money up front. I mean this whole
the COVID experience of people getting signing bonuses. Don't give me a signing bonus, give me a step up in salaries. Yeah, that's exactly right, Jane. What about labor unions? How does
that fit into the conversation that we're having right now. Well, full disclosure, I'm a big proponent of organized bur When I was a teacher, I was a member of a f T. I think They give workers voice, you know, and people only get They only notice labor unions when there's a strike, and certainly we've had horrible strikes with John Deer and Kellogg right now that have created great
supply chain issues. So I understand people's concern, but labor unions force a table conversation between workers and employers, and workers can be as hard headed and negative as employers can be. They bring them to the table and really create an environment where we're investing in each other. So when we talk about talent shortages or your own you know, make your entry level worker into your mid management person. And labor unions really have done that beautifully, not just
in construction and manufacturing. Now you know, they certainly did it in teaching, but now we're starting to see, uh, you know, the the organization that's the fastest organized is the cannabis sector. I mean, talk about that's really pretty cool because that's let workers are across the whole spectrum, people growing, people manufacturing, people selling. It's really cool. Thank you so much. This was really terrific. Comeback anytime. It
was productive conversation. Jane notes she's president of Working Nation, former Assistant Secretary Employment and training in the Obama administration. Yeah, please come back soon. Uh, just some really good things to think about. My mind is still spinning with Tim Statin, Beckam, Carol Masser. This is Bloomberg Radio.