Lightcast EVP Joshua Wright on the WorkingNation Work in Progress podcast discusses The Rising Storm report on the projected labor shortage
Lightcast EVP Joshua Wright on the WorkingNation Work in Progress podcast discusses The Rising Storm report on the projected labor shortage

Needed steps to head off a labor shortage in the U.S.

A conversation with Joshua Wright, EVP of Growth, Lightcast
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In this episode of Work in Progress, Joshua Wright, EVP of Growth for Lightcast, discusses The Rising Storm, the labor research group’s forecast of a massive labor shortage over the next eight years and how we can fix the problem before it hurts the economy.

According the Lightcast report, the workforce will face a labor shortage of six million workers between now and 2032, the largest shortage in our country’s history.

Wright says the it is being driven by the retirement of the baby boomer generation, declining birth rates, and reduced participation in the prime-age workforce. But, he adds, while there is no silver bullet, there are ways we can solve the problem by acting now.

It comes down, Wright says, to taking a closer look at the way we educate and train people for the workforce.

“I think fundamentally this is an opportunity. It is a challenge, but it’s also an opportunity to restructure and rethink the systems that were developed. We’re already seeing states do this, creating new workforce and education offices, or putting those two together and thinking of, ‘How do we transform our education and workforce systems?'”

He goes into details on those solutions for developing more workforce programs to upskill and retain existing workers. Wright says employers play a key role in this strategy, as do the education institutions and local and state governments.

In the podcast, Wright also explains how technology can help speed up these solutions and he addresses the role immigration has always played, and should continue to play, in our labor force.

You can listen to the entire conversation here, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find our podcasts on the Work in Progress YouTube channel.

Episode 345: Joshua Wright, EVP of Growth, Lightcast
Host & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Theme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4
Transcript: Download the transcript for this episode here
Work in Progress Podcast: Catch up on previous episodes 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.