00:00 No matter how high tech the world becomes, it seems that gender equality and women's
00:06 place in the workplace will always be issues that have no definitive solutions.
00:10 A global gender gap report last year by the World Economic Forum showed women's labor
00:16 force participation rate dropped by 3.4 percent compared to 2.4 percent for men between 2019
00:22 and 2020.
00:23 Another 2023 report by the International Labor Organization revealed women have a harder
00:29 time searching for jobs than men.
00:32 The gender gap in the workforce stood at 29.2 percent in 2022.
00:37 Female participation is at 61.4 percent, while male participation is at 90.6 percent.
00:44 Luckily, there is a platform geared towards promoting gender equality and helping women
00:49 get hired and get quality opportunities, some of which they could do even remotely.
00:54 This also offers hybrid work arrangements for women who can't sacrifice schedule flexibility
01:00 to be able to maintain a healthy work and life balance.
01:03 Thus, instead of having a workforce that is often male-dominated, companies are given
01:08 the capability to actually hire highly qualified and very capable women.
01:13 All of these can be done with the help of right data and artificial intelligence or
01:17 AI.
01:20 So if you're already intrigued with how they do it and to discuss more about the transformative
01:25 trends in the job market, we will make you wait no further by introducing our guest for
01:29 tonight, Kimberly Chen, the country manager of Boss Job.
01:32 Good evening, Kimberly.
01:33 Thank you for dropping by.
01:34 Thank you for having me.
01:35 Okay, we are very interested to pick your brain for tonight about Boss Job and the trends
01:39 in the market.
01:42 How was your company conceptualized and what initiatives did you immediately introduce
01:47 to make the platform more friendly for users?
01:50 Right.
01:51 So to start the founding story, our founder is actually a serial entrepreneur.
01:57 So he has already built multiple businesses and what he has challenged or like the challenges
02:03 that he has met is actually having difficulties in terms of finding or hiring the right talents.
02:10 And in terms of like looking at the available recruitment agencies, available job platforms,
02:15 it actually is putting into a disadvantage for the startups and small, medium sized enterprises.
02:21 It's because of the service charge is really high, which is ranging out 50 to 20%.
02:26 Yes.
02:27 Wow, that's huge.
02:28 Exactly.
02:29 Okay.
02:30 Right.
02:31 Which is not a good number in terms of like companies that's just starting.
02:33 Right.
02:34 Yeah.
02:35 Yeah.
02:36 That's normally the killer.
02:37 You know, you have all the startup costs already and then you have all the service charges
02:39 that puts a huge dent on your startup capital.
02:42 So how would you say, what were the first initiatives that you made to make your app
02:47 friendly?
02:48 Right.
02:49 So because of these pain points, so our founder was like, okay, we need to leverage the power
02:55 of technology.
02:56 We need to build a platform where we can actually let these small startups and businesses be
03:02 able to post their job opportunities and be able to have a quick and better access for
03:07 the job applicants.
03:08 And in terms of the initiatives, we are actually opening up or making more action in terms
03:13 of like giving more opportunities for the women, for the males, specifically for the
03:20 Philippines alone.
03:21 Right.
03:22 So in terms of like initiatives, we have been organizing multiple types of career fairs
03:26 and actually we're organizing one of the biggest job fair by July 13 to 14.
03:32 Like we'll be inviting around a hundred plus of companies.
03:34 Yeah.
03:35 So as a leeway to that, are you also collaborating with some government agencies?
03:42 We are.
03:43 We are.
03:44 We can share more after we have signed all of the contracts, but we have been very much
03:50 actively discussing with them about the different types of like programs such as upskilling,
03:56 training programs, specifically for the blue collars and also even like white collar people.
04:00 Okay.
04:01 So the Philippines, as far as gender equality and women in the workplace is concerned, has
04:06 gone a long way.
04:09 What can you say about our current state or maybe the job disparity?
04:12 You know, that's a common term, job disparity and job opportunities for men and women in
04:17 the workplace in this current day and age.
04:20 Right.
04:21 The gap is actually quite big here in the Philippines.
04:24 So let's talk first about like what are these industries, right?
04:27 That we can see like more and less of women representation.
04:30 We can also look into like the technicalities, for example, the science and technology, engineering
04:36 and mathematics type of occupations.
04:38 Right.
04:39 So let's first talk about the industries.
04:41 There are more representation in terms of the consumer services, retail and education
04:46 for the women.
04:47 Right.
04:48 But then there are lesser women representation for like industries in real estate, construction
04:53 and financial.
04:55 So and in terms of like the actually one of the statements that World Economic Forum,
05:02 the Gender Global Index Report has mentioned, right, there are roughly around 40 percent
05:08 women representation in the non-STEM, but roughly only 29 point something like almost
05:13 30 percent in the STEM occupations, which is actually like that's a huge gap already.
05:19 And in terms of like when we talk about like the white collars, we can see that, okay,
05:23 the rank and file positions are almost the same for like both male and female here in
05:28 the Philippines.
05:29 But as you rise up above the ranks, you would actually see that the gap is huge.
05:34 Yeah.
05:35 Meaning there are more men.
05:36 There are more male.
05:37 Yes.
05:38 Advancing.
05:39 Correct.
05:40 Correct.
05:41 Very interesting points you make.
05:42 How does the Philippines fare as far as Southeast Asia is concerned and the world?
05:46 I know that the Philippines is actually also making a lot more strides and, you know, giving
05:51 more opportunities for women in the workplace, making them feel more comfortable with new
05:56 legislation coming up.
05:58 Do you have data on that?
06:01 So in terms of legislations, right, so there's actually like recently, I'm not sure which
06:06 year, but then it was previously around 60 plus days in terms of like the pregnancy period.
06:13 But now it's like the paid for the pregnancy work leave is around already 100 plus days.
06:19 So that's actually quite good for the women applicants or like employees.
06:27 But then for the companies, that's actually something that they will take back or like
06:32 they would like step back in terms of like hiring like women at the age of like 26 to
06:37 30.
06:38 Yeah.
06:39 So that's actually like one of the biggest gap as well here in the Philippines workforce.
06:43 OK, so I understand that Boss Job is a company that can actually sort of be a liaison or
06:50 a bridge for job seekers and those that are looking for not just local opportunities,
06:56 but also global and even remote opportunities.
06:58 So I'm very excited about that.
06:59 You know, as you know, we women, we know we carry it.
07:02 We wear a lot of hats.
07:03 You know, we do so many things around the house and for our families and all that.
07:08 So how would you be able to do this?
07:10 Yes, correct.
07:11 So understanding that we need to create equal opportunities for everyone, specifically for
07:16 the women, we understand that they need more flexibility because they have like multiple
07:21 responsibilities in terms of like personnel and work.
07:24 So what they are looking for specifically is flexibility.
07:27 So that's why we have opened our product feature to specifically remote and global opportunities
07:33 for women.
07:35 So that will be like more hybrid set up and then more remote set up for these women in
07:39 order for them to be able to advance in their career, but not affecting their personal lives
07:45 as well.
07:46 Okay.
07:47 So tell us more about the role that the company plays in, I would say, shaping a more inclusive
07:51 work environment, specifically one that's more accommodating of women, especially now
07:57 that we're celebrating Women's Month.
07:58 So it's very timely.
07:59 We're talking about transformative trends as far as women are concerned.
08:06 If you are going to be looking at the available jobs here in the Philippines, you would actually
08:11 see that there are more people or like women applying for like customer service, accounting,
08:17 admin, right?
08:18 Like more flexible type of work.
08:20 So if you're asking, for example, how can we take leverage in terms of our international
08:28 capabilities or international connections with these companies, we actually talk to
08:33 them and then tell them we have a lot of bright talents here in the Philippines, wherein you
08:38 can actually leverage on them as well.
08:39 So we have a lot of international accounts that would post in our platform in order for
08:44 us to bridge more opportunities for these women.
08:47 So would you say that each applicant or I would say a pool of specific applicants that
08:53 share maybe specific personalities or characteristics, would they have like an account manager or
09:00 something that would be veering them off to a certain job opportunity?
09:05 Or is that where data-driven approaches and AI comes into play?
09:10 We have AI-driven capabilities within our platform.
09:14 So for example, we have the job matching function or opportunity matching function, meaning
09:23 we would actually analyze what are the skills of these people, what are the experience,
09:28 what are the preference of these people, and then provide them a more personalized job
09:33 recommendations for these people.
09:35 Okay, so AI is an important tool that you use in Boss Job.
09:42 So is this something that is from the beginning, that assesses the different needs of the applicant
09:48 all the way up to perhaps career growth and all that?
09:52 I mean, does Boss Job only attend to the beginning, or is it something that an applicant can say,
10:00 refer back to for like maybe seminars or other helpful opportunities?
10:06 We have end-to-end solutions actually for these applicants.
10:09 Actually we have both online and offline as well.
10:12 So online, which is more on like AI-driven capabilities, right?
10:14 So I've mentioned about the talent matching, the job matching.
10:17 We also have the AI career toolkit.
10:20 So for example, there are a lot of people having a hard time in terms of like writing
10:23 or like polishing their CVs.
10:26 We actually have that toolkit for them in order to help them to create a better version
10:31 of their CVs.
10:33 And then in terms of the online, we actually have like some upskilling and training programs.
10:38 We also organize different kinds of like career workshops, career fairs, and job fairs as
10:44 mentioned.
10:45 Yeah, because those are very helpful, you know.
10:47 As we all know, finding, I would say, a great job is, I would say, an ongoing process because
10:53 you learn more about yourself as you progress in your career.
10:57 So having these tools, like you mentioned, is a huge help.
11:00 Yeah, so what is the future for Boss Job as we look into the horizon as far as development
11:06 is concerned?
11:07 And as you mentioned, there are job fairs in the works.
11:09 Right.
11:10 In terms of the future, I think I would want to like focus on providing more job opportunities
11:15 for the Filipinos here in the Philippines and hopefully be able to bridge them more
11:20 job opportunities, not only restricting here in the Philippines only, but also, as mentioned
11:25 earlier, providing them more job opportunities coming from global, coming from outside the
11:30 Philippines.
11:31 Yes.
11:32 And hopefully, because we're talking about the women's topic, right?
11:35 So hopefully we'll be able to create inclusive work environment as well for the women.
11:39 Very, very excited for new developments to come for Boss Job.
11:42 This is great, great developments for women as well in the workplace.
11:45 Thank you so much for your time.
11:46 - Thank you so much.
11:47 - Thank you so much.
