Insight on America's Labor Puzzle

scaling back its mortgage business so workers Affective Alliance. Burstein has eliminated more than a hundred jobs from its workforce after a year of turmoil in the equity and credit markets. So they continue um a lot of them, as you know we've talked about in the tech sector, but they are definitely feels like it's becoming more broader based our next guest in our team just surveyed more than four hundred senior execs when it comes to layoffs in the

labor market. Here to tell us about that, Kate to Shane. She is CEO of r GP. They're a global consulting firm. Uh. They work with the likes of s A, p Oracle, NetSuite, Service Now and some others. She joins us via zoom from Irvine, California. Kate, good to have you here with us UM. I do want to start more broadly based on you know, your conversations with clients. How would you describe the labor market right now? Well, Hi, Caroline, thanks for having me. You know, we have a brought the

environment UM. So we have certain clients that are experiencing layoffs, and we have others that are growing UM and still pursuing many of the transformation initiatives that they started coming out of COVID. So I think what clients really care most about is finding the right skill sets to match to their strategic initiatives right now and procuring that kind of talent in a variety of ways. It may not

always be full time hiring. You know, our business is about UM project based work, and so we're seeing an uptick even with some of those companies that have announced layoffs, they're starting to get their talent needs filled through project based work UM, which is a strategy to keep core teams lean UM but still be able to move strategic

initiatives forward. Yeah. I feel like we've heard that a lot over the last decade, right, Uh, Because for the company's advantage, right let's the be nimble and flexible, but it also kind of lowers their fixed costs. Is that fair? That's a perfectly fair way of looking at it. UM you know, goes back to what Peter Drucker always said is that the most UM innovative companies will keep their core staff lean and think about the skill sets they need for the time period in which they need them

in order to move the fastest. And that's what we're seeing come back to life or maybe take a resurgence. Resurgence as a strategy in today's environment. Okay, would you say that you see people doing that when they're a little bit more nervous about the outlook. I think that's true. But you know, you mentioned our research. What we found is that the number of transformation projects is not slowing down UM even in the face of economic uncertainty. That

they're more projects underway today than ever. Uh And but but companies are being very i think focused on their priorities and so we're also finding from our research that more companies are bringing UM mixed teams we call them organizationally diverse teams in order to deliver the results they need. And that means there's been a significant rise in the use of independent or project based consulting UM talent to mix into the teams to deliver the results as efficiently

and quickly as possible. Well, let's talk about the digital talent. I mean, we certainly have focused a lot on the tech layoffs specifically, which would make me, you know, assume that they are what we would classify as digital talent in a large way. Mean, are they quickly finding you know, that they're being um, you know, attracted or or chosen to go to other maybe non tech companies because all

companies need digital workers. So are you finding that they're able to either kind of move to another industry pretty easily. We're seeing that kind of movement. Yes, definitely that's the case. I mean, it's almost that the tech layoffs have created a more even playing field for the rest of us because we all need I can't think of a business that isn't going through some form of digital transformation today. So those in demand skills UM will find homes quickly.

All right. So it's interesting too that um, you know, and I'm wonder if this kind of continues to pick up some momentum UM because like I said, we've been talking about I remember, you know, certainly pre pandemic where companies are doing this because of the flexibility UM the growth of people. I don't want to see temp workers or project workers, but that's essentially what they are. How much growth have we seen in this type of workers

as a part of our labor force. Yeah, so our research showed that UM three years ago, the percentage of what we call project based or freelance talent, whether we're talking about independent contractors or employees. Let's put that aside, but that more freelance talent UM it's risen by about ten in the last UM three years. So that's a significant increase in how not only clients want to get

work done. But I think what we really have to focus on in today's environment is what talent wants coming out of the global pandemic, and what talent has learned about what they really care about, and that's flexibility, choice and control. For a professional worker today, control is everything, And I think there's a lot more confidence in all age growth, all age groups. When you say that, I

think it is all age groups. There's you know, demographics matter, so Carol, You're right, demographics matter on on what matters most, but there's a new felt confidence if you have the right skills, that you really can bet on yourself and don't have to wait to climb the corporate ladder, especially in traditional professional services partnerships where that timeline can extend

to fourteen to you know, sixteen years. Nobody's signing up for that anymore interesting, all right, Kate, good to check in with. You really appreciate it, Kate to Shane. She's the chief executive officer of our g P, as I mentioned earlier, a global consult consulting firm. Excuse me, joining us via zoom from Irvine, California,