Welcome to WorkingNation, a national not-for-profit campaign to educate the American public about the looming unemployment crisis in this country and to start a widespread movement to meet and overcome this unprecedented challenge.

The world of work is changing—faster than we ever could have predicted—and very little is being done to prepare for it. In fact, most Americans are woefully unprepared for the rapidly accelerating changes already underway. If we act now, we can still greatly reduce the negative impact that many American families are poised to face.

According to a recent Oxford University study, as many as 47 percent of all jobs are likely to be eliminated by technology within the next 20 years. That’s nearly half of all workers out of a job. Add globalization, longevity in the workforce, and the inability of our education system to keep pace, and the problem is only made worse.

WorkingNation will draw attention to the complexity and gravity of this challenge and champion scalable solutions. As a country, we have the tools to overcome this challenge. Now is the time to rapidly accelerate our response.

In the coming months, WorkingNation will premier a series of original programming from award-winning directors and producers that investigate the many aspects of the growing employability gap in the United States and its impact on middle class lives as well as those less fortunate.

Projects like the “The Slope of the Curve,” an animated short film by two-time Academy Award-nominated documentarian Marshall Curry; “Jobs 2.0,” a series of digital shorts by two-time Academy Award-winning director Barbara Kopple; and our series of roundtable discussions with thought leaders and experts will be hosted on WorkingNation.com and distributed through one of our mainstream media partners and on social media.

Sign up for our newsletter below to get all of our programming as it premiers.

In the meantime, here are some facts about the future of work that every American should know.

The looming threat of mass Structural Unemployment is everyone’s problem. Nearly half of the country could be affected directly and the rest could suffer from the consequences of a devastated U.S. economy. Many people fail to realize that it won’t just be factory workers and unskilled laborers who lose their jobs. Technology is eliminating highly skilled positions in white-collar industries as well.

The employability gap is a fancy term for a simple concept: There’s a gap between the skills employers need from their workers, both now and in the future, and the skills Americans actually have. The equation is not pretty. Our current education system hasn’t kept up with the rapidly changing skills needed as technology plays a larger role in jobs of all kinds.

Thankfully, some corporations, not-for-profit organizations, and other stakeholders are already coming up with solutions to counteract the skills gap. Organizations like Year Up, College for Social Innovation, Operation Hope, AmeriCorps, and Service Year Alliance are forging a path forward. They’re providing workers in need with skills development, retraining programs, college and vocational credits, internships, and other forms of support. We must to continue to scale these types of solutions and connect more people to these types of programs in order to keep America working.

Progress will be made locally. Overcoming the employability gap will require the active participation of local employers, non-profits, local government leaders and educational organizations on a grassroots level. Thankfully, many are already raising their hand to do their part.

All Americans can be part of the solution. We face a major challenge that will require a widespread movement. It begins with a dialogue, spreading awareness, and getting individuals to consider their own situation in the context of a rapidly changing world of work.

So ask yourself: “Am I Future-Proof?” That means taking an honest assessment of one’s own employment, education and skills. It means understanding your current and future employability and beginning to plan for the challenges ahead.

Art Bilger

Art Bilger, Founder & CEO, is currently an active venture capital investor. He has been an investor in and director of various private companies including Akamai Technologies, Inc., where he also served as Vice Chairman. He was also President, Chief Operating Officer and a director of New World Communications Group, Inc.; a founding partner of Apollo Advisors, LP and Executive Vice President, Co-Head of Corporate Finance and a Director of Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. Art serves on the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School Board of Overseers and sits on the Board’s Executive Committee. He is also Vice Chairman of the Skirball Cultural Center; a Board member of Bet Tzedek; an Advisory Board Member for the Milken Institute Center for the Future of Aging, and a member of the Los Angeles Coalition for the Economy and Jobs. He was an Executive Producer for the film 20 Feet From Stardom, which won the 2013 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature and the 2013 award for Best Documentary at the Independent Spirit Awards. Art’s career began with the completion of his B.S. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and subsequent MBA from The University of Chicago.

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.