The Truth About Jobs

The Big Lies, the Jobs Aren’t Coming Back

September 14, 2016

There has been a lot of positive movement in the statistics released by the Labor Department. But is it the whole story or even the truth? They leave out a large and growing number of Americans whose work status isn’t counted. Americans need to understand the difference between unemployed and underemployed.

Here’s the deal: There are currently around 8 million unemployed people in the United States, and about a quarter of those people have been out of a job for at least six months. However, there are many, many more who want to work, but can’t find a job and have stopped looking for one. They aren’t counted in that number. Now add the nearly 6 million underemployed workers forced to take a job below their skill level or work part-time to make ends meet.

When you add all of those together, you get a fuller picture of what is happening in our workforce. It is believed that more than 15 million Americans can’t find the jobs they want or need. That’s roughly as many people as the population of Los Angeles.

So is the answer to get a college degree? Not necessarily. A four-year degree has risks and benefits, with student loan debt rising over the last decade and many college graduates finding it difficult to get work in their chosen fields after graduation.

Still, college seems to improve your chances of financial security—starting with finding a job. Unemployment rates for people with only a high-school diploma are more than double the rates for people with a bachelor’s degree.

Many people will take advantage of vocational training, community college or apprenticeships, some of which are more focused on the specific skills needed by employers to fill the job openings available in this country. What is clear is that to be successful, everyone will need to engage in “lifelong learning,” to continue adapting to the rapidly changing workplace.

We all must get educated about what is really happening and commit to becoming a lifelong learner.

People need to take control of their careers, making sure they have the right skills for today’s marketplace as well as the future. Workers should refresh their skills throughout the course of their careers to ensure they are still relevant to the labor force. And companies that want to succeed will partner with organizations to create those training opportunities for their employees.

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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.