A House panel asked corporate giants such as the Walt Disney Co. and Boeing for data to gauge the impact of the pandemic on working women in the U.S. amid signs that female workers were disproportionately hurt by the fallout.
The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis Chair James Clyburn asked a dozen large companies to detail by Jan. 7 their layoff criteria, leave policies and benefits adopted during the pandemic. With the crisis pushing more women out of the workforce due to burdens such as child care, lawmakers are seeking to identify practices that promote a sustainable and equitable economic recovery.
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“It is essential that both policymakers and American employers understand how various approaches toward workforce reduction, the implementation of flexible workplace policies, or access to benefits may exacerbate or remediate the pandemic’s impact on women, parents, and other vulnerable workers,” Clyburn wrote in letters to the companies.
The female labor force declined by 1.5 million since the beginning of the pandemic, compared with a decline of 900,000 for the male labor force, Clyburn said.
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Other recipients of the letters include Exxon Mobil, Berkshire Hathaway, Chevron, Cisco, Comcast, AT&T, Citigroup, Oracle Corp, Walmart and Salesforce. The companies collectively let go 100,000 workers during the pandemic-induced economic slowdown, Clyburn said.
