for release on delivery 2 : 20 p. m. edt ( 1 : 20 p. m. cdt ) august 17, 2022 working women in the pandemic era remarks by michelle w. bowman member board of governors of the federal reserve system at arkansas women ’ s commission meeting russellville, arkansas august 17, 2022 it ’ s a pleasure to be with you today to talk about a subject that i experience directly — women ’ s labor force participation. 1 i come to this issue with a similar perspective to this commission, being from a heavily rural state and a small farming and ranching community deep in the flint hills of kansas. but i also have roots here in arkansas, my husband ’ s family is from hardy, and my father ’ s mother was from little rock. it ’ s really nice to be back in an area where i spent a lot of time growing up. my husband and i returned home to kansas with our two children under three in late 2009, just as the impacts of the last financial crisis were making their way to rural areas. at the time, i was a community banker, which means i was also a very active member of the community. as i am sure many of you did then, i saw firsthand the economic impacts of the recession and the increased drug and opioid use that devastated many rural communities across the midwest. at that time, many in the community received benefits from well - intended programs created to provide assistance, which often made it very difficult for small employers to find employees. this was often because, as i learned when trying to hire employees at our local chamber of commerce, the benefit from taking a job was much less than the benefit one could receive from the government at that time while not working. this is one major similarity between the current experience and the last recession, except that in this episode, the benefits many received were far in excess of what they could earn from working. so much so that the benefits provided to a large number of americans resulted in a significant increase in savings, which is only recently these remarks reflect my views and not necessarily those of my colleagues on the board of governors and the federal open market committee. i am grateful to federal reserve staff members nick carollo, wendy dunn, charles fleischman and stacey tevlin for their assistance in preparing this text. - 2beginning to decline and likely leading many who had not yet decided to re - enter the workforce to find work. these labor

tarisa watanagase : thailand's weathering the global downturn address by dr tarisa watanagase, governor of the bank of thailand, at a luncheon with eu ambassadors, bangkok, 3 february 2009. * * * your excellency ambassador hotek, excellencies, honourable guests, ladies and gentlemen, i am delighted to join this luncheon gathering of prominent ambassadors of the council of european union in thailand, under the presidency of ambassador ivan hotek of the czech republic. indeed, i would like to extend my sincere appreciation to ambassador hotek for his kind invitation for me to update excellencies from the eu countries on recent economic developments in thailand and the prospects for 2009. let me begin with the overview of thailand's economic performance. the thai economic performance was satisfactory for 2008 as a whole. gdp is estimated to grow by around 3. 6 percent, driven by the growth momentum during the first three quarters of the year. notably, from october 2008 onwards, economic developments have been deteriorating. during the fourth quarter of 2008, exports weakened considerably, falling by 9. 4 percent from the same quarter of the previous year. since october, exports showed large reduction in manufacturing products, especially high - technology products. on the domestic side, demand as well as consumers'and investors'confidence have deteriorated as evidenced by several indicators reported by the bank of thailand, including the business sentiment index, which fell to the lowest level at 34. 4 in november last year. in light of this, businessmen and the press started to become concerned about the potentially higher unemployment, which exacerbated confidence further. turning to economic stability, inflation pressure has dissipated starting august 2008. headline and core inflation rates, which were at 9. 2 and 3. 7 percent respectively at their peaks in july 2008, fell to 0. 4 and 1. 8 percent at the end of the year. as for the financial sector, our banking system is healthy in terms of profitability and capital base. i will return to touch on the financial sector later on. economic stability on the external front is also very strong. for 2008, the current account recorded a small deficit of 0. 2 billion us dollar. our international reserves amounted to 111 billion us dollar, which is 4 times of short - term external debt. the exchange rate remains competitive and stable. for 2008, the capital account recorded an overall surplus of 12. 8 billion us dollar, of which foreign direct investment or fdi was