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Is Either Candidate Serious About Jobs? No, and Here’s Why.

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LAS VEGAS — What started as a cordial debate turned predictably caustic in Las Vegas on Wednesday night, and with that, probably all hope that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton would have an opportunity to have a substantive discussion about the number one issue voters are interested in hearing about.

Our expectations were high after the White House released reports on the research and development and the future of artificial intelligence. And President Obama spoke extensively on how this relates to the future of work. But for the third time, the displacement of jobs and the state of unemployment as our workforce transitions to accommodate rapidly advancing technology were barely mentioned, in the final Presidential Debate of 2016.

So when moderator Chris Wallace asked the candidates to, “please explain to me why you believe that your plan will create more jobs and growth for this country and your opponent’s plan will not?” the stage was set.

Clinton went first and she touched on the skills gap crisis facing companies and our work force today saying, “I feel strongly that we have to have an education system that starts with preschool and goes through college. That’s why I want more technical education in high schools and in community colleges, real apprenticeships to prepare young people for the jobs of the future. One of the ways you create jobs is by investing in people. So I do have investments, investments in new jobs, investments in education, skill training, and the opportunities for people to get ahead and stay ahead. That’s the kind of approach that will work.”

And that is exactly the approach WorkingNation partner Year Up is taking:

Trump’s answer was less specific.

“So my plan—we’re going to renegotiate trade deals,” he said. “We’re going to have a lot of free trade. We’re going to have free trade, more free trade than we have right now. Our jobs are being sucked out of our economy. You look at all of the places that I just left, you go to Pennsylvania, you go to Ohio, you go to Florida, you go to any of them. You go upstate New York. Our jobs have fled to Mexico and other places. We’re bringing our jobs back.”

But is that even realistic?

Trump is missing the bigger issue as pointed out in The New York Times: “According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 64,000 steelworkers in America last year, and 820,000 home health aides. Next year, there will be fewer steelworkers and still more home health aides, as baby boomers fade into old age. Soon, we will be living in the United States of Home Health Aides, yet the candidates keep talking about steelworkers.”

Companies and communities need to work together to improve the conditions of current workers and re-train people to do the jobs needed now and in the future. There’s no better example than the work being done for coal miners by organizations like AmeriCorps:

What remains clear is that the problem of structural unemployment isn’t going away. So there’s plenty of work to do for whoever becomes the next President of the United States.

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.