Kayaks

Back to Work: Here’s a look at some efforts to help people rejoin the labor force

Job and training opportunities are available to provide pathways to employment
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U.S. employers added 235,000 jobs last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The increase is sharply lower than the 943,000 jobs gained in July.

Additionally, the unemployment rate declined by 0.2% to 5.2% in August with unemployed people numbering 8.4 million.

Meanwhile, jobless claims for the week ending August 28 dropped to 340,000. The Department of Labor notes, ” This is the lowest level for initial claims since March 14, 2020 when it was 256,000.”

We are always on the lookout for job and training opportunities being offered around the country.

On this Labor Day, we share information including manufacturing jobs in an outdoor equipment firm in Wisconsin, an inmate job training program in Virginia, and paid on-the-job training for Virginia college students.

Check it out.

From Arkansas: TB&P reports a new nonprofit is launching programming to help lift people out of poverty in northwest Arkansas with focus on financial literacy and job growth.

From Delaware: Delaware Public Media reports a Delaware prison is training inmates to work as home health aides. The skills will be utilized to help elderly and ill inmates with day-to-day care and then be applied to jobs after release.

From Indiana: WLFI reports the Indiana State Department of Agriculture is encouraging specialty crop growers to apply for funding that includes help with access, education, and training.

From Virginia: InsideNoVa reports collaboration between Northern Virginia Community College, AT&T, and the state labor department will provide IT training and on-the-job experience to college students to address the needs of national-security employers.

From Wisconsin: Spectrum News 1 reports a plastics manufacturer in Oostburg—in the southeastern part of the state—is hiring up to 40 new employees due to a particular demand for kayaks, coolers, and outdoor furniture.

Did you miss our previous Back to Work stories from around the country? Catch up here.

Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.