In response to a legislative mandate contained in the 1992 amendments to the Job Training Partnership Act to "identify a core set of consistently defined data elements" for the major Federal employment and training programs, the Department of Labor undertook the Core Data Elements Project. It was joined in this effort by the Departments of Agriculture, Education, and Health and Human Services, and by the National Occupational Information Coordinating Committee, the General Accounting Office, the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the National Governors Association.