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The winners and losers of globalization

The advantages of globalization are actually much like the advantages of technological improvement. But, as we've always known, and this is true again with technology, there are always some winners and losers, the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) tells the World Economic Forum.
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We hear a lot about how companies are closing plants and sending jobs overseas where workers toil longer and harder for less pay. But coupled together with technology and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, can globalization actually be a force for good in the workplace?

Gita Gopinath headshot
Gita Gopinath (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Gita Gopinath, Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund, tells the World Economic Forum (WEF), “If you frame the question as, has international trade been good for the manufacturing worker in the U.S.? Then the answer to that would be ‘not fully’; it’s been very costly in terms of jobs and wages for them.”

As with any economic policy, Gopinath details the winners and losers. Overseas, jobs are created and wages are raised. In the United States and worldwide, consumers benefit from lower-priced goods. Clearly, the displaced workers from the manufacturing sector are losers.

Moving forward, she tells WEF, “If we want to make sure that the next wave of globalization is even more successful, it has to be complemented with good, sound domestic policies that help those who are getting left out.”

Over the past year, lawmakers have been working to do just that.

Last year, President Donald Trump signed bi-partisan legislation renewing the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. The bill will send $1.2 billion a year to states to help an estimated 11 million students and workers get better access to training for today’s in-demand jobs.

This year, U.S. Senators Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Rob Portman (R-OH) re-introduced their 2017, Jumpstart Our Businesses By Supporting Students (JOBS) Act that would help close the “skills gap” by expanding Pell Grant eligibility to cover high-quality and rigorous short-term job training programs so workers can afford the skills training and credentials that are in high demand in today’s job market.

MORE: Discovering the value of work-based learning opportunities

Since our inception, WorkingNation has been explaining that one of the key components driving structural unemployment and the skills gap is the globalization of the economy. Our short film, Slope of the Curve, explains the effects in detail.

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.