Sandee Barrick was making a six-figure salary as a salesperson when she quit her job in December 2019 to move to North Carolina. She had planned to return to work as soon as she got settled, but she was still enrolling her younger son in school and switching over her driver’s license and registration when the coronavirus pandemic hit and everything shut down

Corporate America: We need to talk about your Employee Resource Groups (ERGs). We became familiar with ERGs when many welcomed us to speak on the gender and racial justice themes we write about in our books. As one of the most powerful trends in the U.S. workplace, ERGs are a way for underrepresented groups to band together to help recruit more talent like them into their companies and make sure that talent feels supported and gets promoted.

TIAA CEO Thasunda Brown Duckett is one of two Black women who lead a Fortune 500 company. She’s also in another select group: powerful women with a stay-at-home spouse. Her husband Richard helps care for the couple’s four children.

As the world reopens, come brush up on your networking skills during our WiS Speed Networking Event on Thursday, July 22. During a series of five-minute conversations, you will have the opportunity to connect with other structured finance professionals and expand your network.

In July, join us for an interactive chat about Work/Life Sway. With work and home physically merging over the past 15 months, what lessons have you learned to manage your own work/life sway? Come share your thoughts and hear what others have to say.

Grab your lunch and a colleague and join us for our inaugural Lunch & Learn event on Thursday, June 17, at 1:00 PM EDT. This month’s topic, How Joining a Junior Board Can Be Fulfilling, Both Professionally and Personally, will feature personal stories of junior board members.

Students will network and learn from leaders and mentors from Structured Finance Association’s Women in Securitization initiative, discover how financial services fits into the real economy and everyday lives, and explore the wide range of jobs available and skills needed to pursue a career in the industry.

Women’s labor force participation grew precipitously in the latter half of the 20th century, but by around the year 2000, that progress had stalled. In fact, the labor force participation rate for prime-age women (those aged 25 to 54) fell four percentage points between 2000 and 2015, breaking a decades-long trend. However, as the labor market gained traction in the aftermath of the Great Recession, more women were drawn into the labor force.

The road to full economic recovery from the pandemic may be steeper than anticipated. U.S. employers added 266,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department reported Friday. That's far fewer than the nearly 1 million analysts expected given other recent signs of recovery: business reopening, consumer spending increasing, and new unemployment claims falling.

Workers are heading back into the office, but men and women may not return to their desks equally. This could impact gender equality and advancement, keeping women behind in the workplace.