0:00

This podcast is brought to

0:02

you by Progressive. Are you driving

0:04

your car or doing laundry right now? Podcasts

0:07

go best when they're bundled with another activity,

0:10

like Progressive home and auto policies. They're

0:13

best when bundled too. Having

0:15

these two policies together makes insurance

0:17

easier and could help you save. Customers

0:20

who save by switching their home and car insurance to

0:22

Progressive save nearly $800 on average. Download

0:26

a home and car bundle today at Progressive.com.

0:30

Progressive

0:30

casualty insurance company and affiliates. National

0:33

average 12-month savings of $793 by

0:36

new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive

0:38

between June 2021 and May 2022. Potential

0:42

savings will vary.

0:48

Just a heads up before we get started. There's

0:50

some light swearing in this episode.

0:52

Okay, here's the show.

0:57

I left a stable job

1:00

while I was pregnant, nonetheless,

1:02

and took a chance to essentially

1:05

work at a dream company in a dream

1:07

role. And I remember even saying

1:09

that in the interview process at Amazon. And I was like,

1:11

look, I'm nervous. I'm pregnant. Like, are

1:13

you guys sure

1:16

about

1:17

this? That's Nadine Saleem describing

1:19

her excitement and fear after

1:22

landing a job at Amazon last year. She

1:24

had quit a different job, a good

1:27

job by her account, at another company

1:29

to take on a role on Amazon's brand

1:31

team. And she did it at

1:33

a vulnerable time when she was expecting a baby.

1:36

But Amazon, like so many tech companies,

1:39

had great maternity leave benefits. Generous

1:41

leave meant, in part, to attract women

1:44

to jobs in a male-dominated industry.

1:47

So Nadine was feeling pretty good a few months

1:49

later when she finally went out on her maternity

1:51

leave.

1:52

Then, just weeks into her

1:54

time away, with her newborn at home,

1:57

she checked her work email. wake

2:00

up and I see

2:02

my mail app, which is what I

2:04

had used to have my work

2:07

email, went from, I don't know, hundreds

2:09

of emails down to one. It says

2:11

important information about your role. It's like, I don't

2:13

even need to open it. Like I know what

2:16

it says.

2:21

The tech industry hit a rough patch late

2:23

last year as interest rates rose and

2:25

pandemic-era habits faded.

2:28

Nadine learned she was one of hundreds of thousands

2:31

of workers laid off from their very good,

2:33

benefit-heavy tech jobs earlier this

2:35

year,

2:36

and one of many women who got

2:38

the news while they were out on maternity leave.

2:40

I just remember being like,

2:43

holy shit, like, what do we do?

2:45

What am I going to do? I was like, am I really going

2:47

to try to job hunt with a newborn?

2:49

And I, you know, I remember

2:52

just kind of talking about, I broke down. I was in tears.

2:55

The thing about the tech layoffs is they disproportionately

2:58

affected women. According to an analysis

3:01

from layoffs.fyi, women

3:03

made up 45% of laid off

3:06

tech employees from October

3:07

2022 through this June.

3:10

But women make up a lower percentage

3:12

of tech workers overall. So

3:14

today on the show, why so many women

3:16

in tech lost their jobs this year in such a

3:18

male-heavy industry and how the

3:20

tech industry can avoid doubling down

3:23

on some of the mistakes that got us to the spot

3:25

in the first place. I'm Emily

3:27

Peck, filling in for Lizzie O'Leary. And you're

3:29

listening to What Next TBD, a

3:31

show about tech power and how the future

3:34

will be determined. Stick around.

3:44

At Kroger, everyone wins

3:46

when it comes to saving big. Because

3:48

when you order online through the Kroger app,

3:51

you get the same great prices, deals,

3:53

and rewards on pickup or delivery

3:56

that you do in store with no hidden

3:58

fees or markups. Best of luck.

3:59

you'll know when items in your cart

4:02

have a coupon, so you never miss a deal. So

4:04

whether you're a delivery lover, picker

4:06

upper, or you shop in store, no matter

4:08

how you shop, you'll always save

4:10

big at Kroger. Kroger, fresh

4:13

for everyone.

4:14

At the end of your first year, Discover

4:17

credit cards automatically double all

4:19

the cash back you've earned. That's right, everything

4:22

you earned doubled. All

4:24

the cash back from eating at your favorite soup dumpling

4:26

restaurant doubled. All the cash

4:28

back from that trip where you sort of learned to snowboard

4:31

also doubled. And the best part, you don't

4:33

have to do anything ridiculous to get it. Nope,

4:36

Discover does it automatically. Seriously

4:39

though, see terms and check it out for yourself

4:41

at discover.com slash

4:43

match.

4:47

To understand why women were disproportionately

4:50

impacted by layoffs in tech, we have to

4:52

go back to the beginning, to the

4:54

early to mid 2000s. Big

4:56

companies like Facebook and Twitter were

4:58

in their infancy. And the workforce

5:01

reflected the leaders at these companies, meaning

5:03

it was predominantly young white men.

5:05

And according to Emma Goldberg,

5:08

who covers the future of work for the New York Times,

5:10

a traditional corporate structure was not

5:12

a part of the equation.

5:14

It's a great question. And I think, you

5:17

know, Hollywood offers some touch points.

5:20

A lot of people probably seen the social

5:22

network, which encapsulates a lot

5:24

of the vibe and the atmosphere

5:27

of early tech.

5:28

The candidate responsible

5:30

has to drink a shot. As of a program running that has

5:32

a pop-up window appear simultaneously on all five

5:34

computers, the last candidate to hit the window has to drink a shot.

5:37

Plus every three minutes, they all

5:38

have to drink a shot. Three minutes!

5:41

And can I ask, what part of the intern's job will

5:44

they need to be able to do drunk? It was

5:46

definitely a lot less formalized

5:49

than a lot of the kind of major tech

5:52

offices that we picture today. Because,

5:55

you know, I think the industry got a lot

5:57

of its juice, a lot of its energy from

5:59

a sense.

5:59

of informality, a sense

6:02

of less hierarchy,

6:04

people sharing ideas with one another,

6:08

this idea that really young

6:10

people were in charge of a lot of money

6:13

and a lot of power. And that principle

6:15

really animated the industry for a

6:17

while. There was a sense that it was

6:19

kind of like no parents, no rules,

6:22

and the companies were not

6:24

structured in the way, like

6:27

banks and law firms and these other

6:29

kind of embodiments of

6:32

traditional corporate authority

6:33

were. They ran on a sense

6:35

of casual, fast-moving

6:38

idea generation.

6:40

And back then, I mean, these were, when you

6:42

say young people, it was mostly young

6:45

men. They're sort of like the beating heart of these Silicon

6:48

Valley companies that were, staying

6:50

late, playing ping pong, sleeping at the office,

6:52

that kind of thing.

6:53

It was a very male industry, and

6:56

continues to be in a lot of ways. I think

6:59

when you think about the male-dominated nature

7:01

of the industry, it really does go back to early

7:03

in the pipeline. Men have just

7:05

been overrepresented for a long time

7:07

in engineering programs, in

7:10

software engineering, and women

7:12

have struggled to break in and to

7:14

get the opportunities that men have.

7:17

But

7:17

then somewhere along the

7:19

line that changed, maybe in the

7:21

mid 2010s, you started to see

7:24

these companies talking about diversity.

7:26

DEI initiatives became a thing.

7:29

Progressive benefits came into play.

7:31

I remember covering a lot of announcements

7:34

about parental leave. So

7:37

what changed? Yeah,

7:39

I think as these companies got larger

7:43

and more structured,

7:45

they grew up a little bit. They realized that they

7:47

had to have HR departments, they had to have management

7:50

systems, they

7:52

were too big to just kind of run on the ideas

7:54

of whoever the genius founder happened

7:56

to be. You had Facebook,

7:59

for example. brought in Sheryl Sandberg

8:01

to some people, kind of a parent

8:03

figure. So there were more

8:06

and more people coming into the industry to sort of impose

8:08

some sense of structure and rules on

8:11

what had previously been pretty freewheeling.

8:14

And at the same time, tech companies also

8:16

came to embody this new idea of what an

8:18

office could be. Because they brought in more

8:20

structure and they brought in more of a sense of rules,

8:23

but at the same time, they maintained a sense

8:27

of fun and playfulness. And Google

8:29

was famous for having like a big slide.

8:32

There were companies that had happy

8:34

hours and fitness

8:37

classes on site. And

8:39

the companies really just embraced this

8:42

sense of playfulness. And that was

8:44

really in the name of making people want to

8:46

feel like they could spend all their hours

8:49

at the office and just have their whole lives take

8:51

place at the office. They

8:53

wanted people to feel like they could do their laundry at the

8:55

office, have three meals a day there,

8:57

do their workouts, have their entire social

8:59

life there. And when you think about

9:02

who that type of work style

9:04

best serves, of course, it's

9:06

going to be people who don't have childcare responsibilities.

9:09

So that system was still set up to best

9:11

serve men.

9:13

But still, these companies are saying, at

9:15

least publicly, we want to hire more

9:18

women, we want to hire more people of color,

9:20

we're going to give the best maternity

9:23

leave possible. We're

9:26

very sensitive to all that. Like they

9:28

appear to be trying, even though the culture

9:31

is still sort of going in the direction

9:33

of favoring the single young man, right?

9:36

Absolutely. And for quite a while,

9:39

tech companies were kind of projecting

9:41

to young job seekers this idea

9:44

that these companies were a place where you

9:46

could sort of align those elusive

9:48

ideas of doing well and doing

9:50

good. Like you were

9:53

working on these big, complicated problems

9:55

in the world and making a massive

9:57

impact while making a lot of money. And

10:00

they realized that if they were going to telegraph those

10:02

values, they also had to kind of get

10:04

their insides in order by

10:07

diversifying their staff, having DEI

10:09

initiatives, finding ways to

10:11

build more of a pipeline for women and people of color.

10:15

For years, the tech industry thrived in the

10:17

era of low interest rates. They hired

10:19

like mad. Amazon, in particular,

10:22

doubled the size of its corporate staff from 2019 to 2022,

10:24

including

10:26

in departments like DEI,

10:29

recruiting, and HR.

10:31

But as inflation began to rise and the Fed

10:33

started raising interest rates,

10:35

companies realized that the easy money was

10:37

gone.

10:38

Their stock prices tanked, and

10:40

late last year, they began to ruthlessly

10:42

cut tens of thousands of jobs.

10:45

The easy money economy ground to

10:47

a halt, in part

10:50

because of that change in interest rates. And

10:52

so all of a sudden, you started to see every

10:54

household name and tech doing massive

10:57

layoffs and it was, you know, meta,

11:00

Google, Salesforce, Amazon,

11:03

really, no one was spared. And I think there

11:05

was a little bit of a sense that once some

11:08

companies were doing layoffs, other companies were hopping

11:10

on board because you had the opportunity

11:12

to kind of bury your layoffs in the news cycle

11:15

if

11:15

you're doing it at the same time as everybody else.

11:17

Yeah, everyone's doing it. So

11:19

let's just, let's do it too. Exactly.

11:23

People were hopping on the bandwagon. Yeah. And

11:26

so one reason we wanted to talk to you is

11:28

because there's this data out now

11:30

from that site, layoffs.fyi,

11:34

that looked at like a little

11:36

sample, I think of 3,400 workers, tech

11:40

workers who were laid off. They found that 45% of them

11:42

were women, 55% were men, which at first you're like,

11:43

oh, of

11:47

course there are more men than women were laid off. So

11:49

that that's totally fine. But

11:52

that's not quite the way to look at it, right?

11:55

Right. I mean, I think what's important to

11:57

bear in mind when you think about that number is that

11:59

represented about 39% of the workforce overall. So

12:05

they might have been about 45%, 46% of the layoffs, but

12:09

they were only 39% of the workforce. So

12:13

the question to then ask is why were women

12:15

overrepresented in these mass

12:17

layoffs? Answer it, Emma.

12:19

Well, I think one of the issues

12:22

going on here is that laid off workers were

12:25

more likely to be in positions that tech

12:27

companies might have been considering peripheral

12:30

to the core work of the company. And

12:32

that checks out when you think about the

12:34

fact that men are still overrepresented in

12:37

software engineering. So when

12:39

tech companies are realizing they need to hit their

12:41

diversity goals, they're going to hire

12:43

women in positions in parts

12:46

of the company like HR or customer service,

12:49

which also

12:49

in

12:50

the minds of hiring managers kind

12:52

of play into some of the stereotypes of what they

12:54

think women might be better at, like the kind of

12:57

people-oriented positions, the

12:59

nurturing and that

13:02

side of the company rather than the alone

13:04

in a room bent over a laptop with headphones

13:07

on stereotype of an engineer. I

13:09

was thinking about this a lot because I mean,

13:12

does it mean that the diversity efforts

13:14

around hiring for these companies were sort

13:16

of not as successful?

13:19

I mean, they were never, the gender

13:21

balance was never there.

13:23

They were never successful in getting to

13:25

some kind of 50-50 gender balance. But even

13:27

beyond that, the hiring that did take place,

13:30

since it was so skewed to the supposedly

13:33

non-essential parts of the

13:35

business, does

13:37

that mean the diversity efforts sort of

13:40

weren't very good in the first place?

13:43

It reveals what

13:45

it really takes to diversify

13:47

a company. In a lot

13:49

of instances, when companies set goals

13:51

around diversity,

13:54

they're thinking about how

13:57

to kind of meet those goals

14:00

aesthetic or public presenting

14:02

way. They're like, we need to communicate to

14:04

the public and to our own

14:06

employees that we've hired x% of

14:08

women or

14:10

people of color. But they're not necessarily

14:13

thinking about how to really bake that

14:15

into the DNA of the company and

14:17

make those gains sustainable. Because

14:20

if you're gonna make sustainable gains

14:22

around DEI, that has to also come

14:25

from the pipeline. Like you have to be thinking

14:27

about how do we train women

14:29

and people of

14:29

color to do the

14:32

tasks that are core to the company, like

14:34

engineering. So

14:37

if you hire people into

14:39

positions that are kind of peripheral to what the company

14:41

does, then you might not be

14:44

actually meeting your goals around diversity in

14:46

a sustainable way.

14:47

And I was also thinking, I mean, it's not just in

14:50

tech that there's this concept with layoffs,

14:52

you know, last in first out. And

14:55

with tech, that's almost sort of

14:57

like literally the story because in

14:59

a way, women and people

15:02

of color and women of color were

15:05

last in just broadly speaking.

15:07

Cause these companies all started, like you said,

15:09

as like these very male

15:12

dominated

15:13

cultures. And then, you

15:15

know, finally when the money was really, really finally

15:18

flowing, they sort of grew up and hired all these

15:20

other people. So they were last in and

15:22

now with these layoffs, they seem like

15:24

first out, like, oh, we don't need you. We

15:26

can go back to the way it was. It does

15:28

feel like that is a little bit of

15:30

the story that's come through. We

15:33

also have to look at the notion that,

15:36

first of all, like you said, it's last in

15:38

first out, but people also really

15:40

need allies and mentors within

15:42

a company in order to succeed

15:45

and climb the ranks of those companies. So

15:47

if the companies still have men

15:50

and especially white men overrepresented

15:52

in their leadership ranks

15:54

and in C-suites, then the

15:56

people who get the best mentorship and

15:58

the best kind of support. and

16:01

opportunities are often going to be

16:04

the younger men and especially white men

16:07

who have people who kind of look at them and

16:09

see younger versions of themselves. Right,

16:11

right. That makes sense. You have a mentor

16:14

that's sort of,

16:15

I used to be just like you and I can

16:17

show you how to do it just like I did.

16:20

And that's not intentionally discriminatory,

16:23

but that's sort of how it works out.

16:25

Exactly. We still really have, I think in

16:27

the industry, a lot of these kinds of myths

16:29

of white male genius that get perpetuated

16:33

by C-suites that are over representing

16:38

men and especially white men.

16:45

When we come back,

16:46

you'd think being on maternity leave would

16:49

offer you some job security,

16:51

but you'd be wrong.

16:56

With so many women losing their jobs, it was perhaps

16:58

inevitable and terrible that

17:00

many of them were out on maternity leave. Emma

17:03

spent time talking with these women. I've

17:05

spoken to quite a few too.

17:07

Being home with a newborn is already an

17:09

emotionally fraught time. Add

17:11

a layoff to the situation and you're left reeling.

17:15

You think you're taking maternity leave or paternity

17:17

leave because you have a legal right to

17:20

and that's reaffirmed in certain tech

17:22

company policies and tech companies have

17:25

been among the most generous with parental

17:27

leave. In part because they realized

17:29

they needed to kind of make those big leaps

17:32

in order to diversify their ranks and communicate

17:35

that parental leave was part

17:37

of the generous perk packages. So

17:40

people were out on their leaves thinking that they were entirely

17:42

protected. And then they realized that being

17:45

on

17:45

parental leave didn't offer them any special protection

17:47

from a mass layoff that would have happened anyway.

17:50

But the thing is for people who were on parental leave,

17:53

it's especially terrifying to

17:55

receive news of a layoff because they

17:57

have more financial pressure than ever. And

18:01

yet they're suddenly losing their source

18:03

of income and their source of healthcare. And

18:05

that's a really terrifying reality,

18:08

especially because they're on parental leave so they

18:10

have even less time than usual to

18:12

kind of jump on the

18:15

job application spree and start looking

18:17

for a new position. So it's both

18:19

more terrifying and more

18:22

logistically challenging than

18:24

for their counterparts who aren't on leave.

18:27

A few of the women I spoke to, I don't know about you,

18:29

are like, well, I'm not gonna get a job for a while.

18:32

I'm just gonna stay, you know,

18:33

be with my baby for a while. And you can kind

18:36

of see how that

18:37

could lead to, you know, women

18:39

sort of dropping out of the workforce. It's kind of like

18:41

a callback to the days before

18:43

there was any parental leave and that's sort

18:45

of how it worked. Someone would have a

18:48

baby and then not work for a few years, you know, and

18:50

then maybe get back into the workforce or maybe

18:52

not. Exactly, and applying

18:54

for jobs with a newborn or, you

18:56

know, a baby in those early years

18:59

is just impossibly challenging from

19:01

a time management perspective. And then also

19:03

really challenging because prospective employers

19:05

could look at you and

19:07

even if this is illegal, they could like

19:09

make certain judgments around what they think

19:11

you have time for. Again, it goes

19:13

back to that issue that for a lot of employers,

19:16

the ideal employee is still

19:18

thought of as someone who has no

19:20

outside obligations beyond the company. They,

19:23

you know, are really putting up on a pedestal

19:26

those childless single

19:28

men who they feel like will just jump

19:31

on a laptop or pick up the phone at any hour.

19:34

And so for people who have

19:36

just been laid off, who also

19:37

have newborns, it's more challenging

19:39

than ever to combat those stereotypes. Right,

19:42

and you can't help but wonder if those

19:44

stereotypes played any role

19:46

in the layoffs themselves. I mean,

19:49

none of the tech companies, I don't think, have been accused

19:52

of discrimination. Maybe

19:54

Twitter was, but the case was dismissed

19:57

in how they conducted these layoffs, but it's

19:59

hard not to think. that some of

20:01

that even unconsciously

20:03

played some role here, you know?

20:06

I have to say that was something

20:08

that lingered in the minds of a lot

20:10

of sources who I spoke with. The

20:12

people I talked to said that even

20:14

though they knew kind of from

20:16

a rational perspective, that

20:19

their ability to take parental leave had been legally

20:21

protected, it just leaves

20:23

all these fears and this sense of paranoia

20:26

of like, what if I brought this on myself?

20:29

And there's no way to really confirm it one

20:31

way or the other because the companies are never

20:33

going to say so. But they just wonder

20:35

like,

20:36

was it out of sight, out

20:38

of mind that they'd been out of work for a while and

20:40

so they were easier

20:42

to put in the bucket of the mass layoff? That's

20:45

a horrible fear to live with and it also just

20:47

makes it so much more challenging to ever

20:50

think about taking leave again. Yeah,

20:53

and it's definitely a fear. I've been out

20:55

on leave and when you go out, you're like, are

20:57

they gonna

20:58

find someone else to do my work? Are they gonna do it

21:00

better than me? And then they're gonna realize they don't need

21:02

me after all. Like that's just a basic

21:05

fear of going out on leave. I don't think it changes

21:07

no matter how generous the company is. I mean,

21:09

I think it helps when the company is generous and encouraging

21:12

and a lot of these people, they

21:16

were encouraged and made to feel

21:18

really good when they went out, but you still have

21:20

that.

21:21

I don't think that that paranoia goes

21:23

away really. And I think it points

21:26

back to the narrative we

21:28

were talking about that companies might

21:30

kind of leap to put in place diversity

21:33

initiatives and initiatives that help underrepresented

21:36

populations, but if those aren't

21:39

really, really deeply rooted in the culture

21:41

of the company, then in the long term,

21:43

they're not necessarily going to fully work. So

21:47

if you're saying like, oh, we just need to

21:49

hit these diversity metrics, so we're going to hire

21:51

up more women and people

21:53

of color in HR, but

21:55

then those are the first people to be affected by layoffs,

21:58

or if you're going to put in place.

21:59

really generous packages around

22:02

parental leave

22:05

because you want to telegraph to prospective

22:07

employees and to employees and to the

22:10

public that that's something you care about. But

22:13

then, you know, people while they're

22:15

on parental leave are suddenly affected

22:17

by layouts at the most vulnerable moment in their lives

22:19

and careers. How much have those really taken

22:21

root in the culture?

22:23

Further compounding the problem is the move by

22:25

Big Tech to pull back on some of the pandemic

22:28

era benefits. Specifically,

22:30

working from home.

22:31

Some of the biggest companies in tech, Twitter,

22:34

Apple, and Salesforce have all

22:36

started requiring employees to come into the office

22:38

a certain amount of time during the week.

22:41

For new mothers who are juggling their full-time

22:43

jobs and having a newborn, the

22:45

shift away from remote work is especially

22:47

challenging.

22:48

I think it's really important for companies to be

22:50

asking themselves about how remote work

22:54

is affecting women and

22:56

diversity initiatives. Because

22:59

one of the really striking findings

23:02

from surveys of remote work is

23:04

that people of color

23:07

and women have been some of the quickest

23:09

to embrace remote work.

23:12

There were survey results that found that

23:14

black knowledge workers were more likely to indicate

23:17

a preference for remote work because they

23:18

said that working outside the office made

23:21

it easier to avoid microaggressions

23:23

and kind of clickish office politics.

23:27

For caregivers, they were saying that remote work

23:29

allowed them to tend

23:31

to family obligations more easily. But

23:34

now there's new research coming out that shows

23:36

that remote work actually

23:38

affects the amount of feedback people get on their work.

23:41

There was a really important

23:43

survey, research that came out from

23:45

the Federal Reserve Bank of New York this

23:47

spring that showed

23:48

that people who were working remotely actually

23:51

got

23:52

less feedback. This was

23:54

actually from a tech company and they showed

23:56

that the number of lines of feedback

23:58

someone got on their code.

23:59

was higher when they were in person.

24:02

So the question we have to ask about all of this is are

24:05

companies then kind of going to

24:07

see

24:08

potentially people who are

24:10

working remotely, or are those

24:12

people going to struggle more because they're not getting as

24:14

much feedback, and is that going to disproportionately

24:17

affect women and people of color? Those

24:19

are some of the questions that we have to start asking. And

24:23

we are seeing companies, I think, shift into

24:26

a new phase on remote work. What I called, in

24:28

a recent article, kind of the desperation

24:30

phase, because they can't figure out how to get

24:32

people back. And so you're seeing like

24:34

Salesforce, for example, offered like a $10

24:37

charitable donation on behalf of every

24:40

employee for every day they came into the office

24:42

for a 10 day period in

24:44

late spring. Does that work? Is

24:46

anyone coming in? They're like, I think

24:48

in my mind, I'd be like, you know what, I'm just going to

24:50

give $10 and stay home. I

24:53

think it depends because I think one of the things that it

24:55

does do is show employees how

24:58

much companies are really invested in them coming

25:00

back. You had Google also

25:02

say that they, you know, managers could

25:05

start to take into account office attendance

25:07

and performance reviews. So I think employees

25:10

are seeing more and more from their managers

25:12

that this is being taken really, really seriously.

25:15

And coming off of months of layoffs,

25:18

I think you might see fear start

25:20

to drive some employees back to the office. So

25:22

it's like there was this remote work trend,

25:25

which was really good, we

25:27

think for diversity, but now

25:30

it's reversing itself and that might

25:32

be really bad for diversity.

25:34

Exactly. So some of the, you know, the

25:37

people who really gained from remote work

25:39

were working parents who have always

25:41

really struggled to, you know, do

25:44

the magic of somehow being at your desk at 4 p.m. and

25:46

also being at school pickup.

25:49

They suddenly had that burden like

25:51

really, really eased up. And

25:53

now all of a sudden that's going into reverse.

25:56

And so companies that have been

25:59

preaching.

25:59

about diversity are now

26:03

going to have to face the question of how

26:05

do you allow workers who really need

26:07

the ease of flexible work, you

26:10

know, retain some of those gains

26:13

while also giving people

26:15

some of the benefits of the office. That's something

26:17

we're seeing companies really start to struggle

26:19

with right now.

26:20

Emma, a lot of these companies

26:23

release these diversity reports every year.

26:25

Are you expecting that the

26:27

layoffs will change the way

26:29

those diversity reports look? You know, they say percentage

26:32

of leadership is women or black

26:35

or percentage overall and things like

26:37

that.

26:38

I think it's possible. We won't know until we

26:40

see the numbers, but you know women

26:42

being overrepresented in layoffs is definitely

26:45

a concerning statistic. But that,

26:48

you know, being 45 or 46 percent of all

26:50

the layoffs, even though they're

26:52

a smaller percentage of the overall

26:54

workforce, that could be reflected

26:56

in the numbers.

26:58

For Emma, she sees this moment as

27:00

pivotal for big tech, one

27:02

where the policies they set today will determine

27:04

whether or not their commitment to diversity ever

27:07

meant anything to them.

27:08

We're at an inflection point where companies have to

27:10

make new policies

27:12

around remote and office

27:15

work that will affect workers

27:17

for many, many years to come. And so

27:19

I think what a lot of experts I've spoken to

27:21

are saying is they're hoping that companies do

27:24

do that policymaking in a really intentional

27:26

way. So if workers are asking

27:29

for flexibility or the ability to kind

27:31

of come in later in the workday

27:33

so they can do school drop-off or leave a

27:35

little bit earlier so they can do school pickup

27:38

or

27:38

find mentorship that really helps

27:40

them to succeed, this is also

27:42

an opportunity to make policies

27:44

that will help underrepresented people

27:47

thrive for a much longer period of time

27:49

than just the coming weeks or months.

28:01

Emma,

28:01

thank you so much for coming on. Thanks

28:03

for having me. This was such an interesting conversation.

28:08

We reached out to Amazon for comment on this story,

28:11

but didn't hear back by the time of recording. Emma

28:13

Goldberg covers the future of work for The New York

28:16

Times. And that's it for our show today. What

28:18

Next TBD is produced by Evan Campbell

28:21

and Madeline Ducharme. Our show

28:23

is edited by Jonathan Fisher. Alicia

28:25

Montgomery is vice president of audio for

28:27

Slate. TBD is part of the larger

28:29

What Next family. TBD is

28:32

also part of Future Tense, a partnership

28:34

of Slate, Arizona State University,

28:36

and New America. If you're a fan of the show,

28:38

I have a request for you. Become

28:40

a Slate Plus member. Get all your lovely

28:43

Slate podcasts with no ads. Just

28:45

head on over to slate.com slash what

28:47

next plus to sign up. We'll be back

28:49

next week with more episodes. I'm Emily

28:51

Peck, filling in for Lizzie O'Leary. And

28:54

you can catch me over at Slate Money. It

28:56

comes out Saturdays.

28:57

Thanks for listening.