CEO Library

In 2021, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) to fund contractor Manhattan Strategy Group to conduct the Navigators in Social Service Delivery Settings: A Review of the Literature with Relevance to Workforce Development Programs under the Evaluation Technical Support portfolio of studies.

In 2020, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) funded contractors Mathematica and the University of Connecticut Health Center to conduct a study of factors associated with opioid use among U.S. workers.

The first report from this study, Factors Contributing to Variation in Nonmedical Use of Prescription Pain Relievers Among U.S. Workers: 2004-2014, analyzed secondary data to understand how nonmedical use of prescription pain relievers varied across states, industries and occupations, and other worker characteristics.

The literature review aims to examine the roles and activities of navigator programs in workforce development and related fields as well as the outcomes and impacts of such programs. To address these goals, researchers identified and reviewed relevant literature published between 2010 and 2021. They also reviewed the bibliographic references of the identified articles for additional materials.

Graphic highlighting several Career Pathway program milestones and improvements from the 1980's through the 2020's.

The report focuses on implementation of key changes to governance of the workforce system and how state and local workforce boards engage in planning across the core programs. Discussed here are the successes and challenges, promising practices, and possible areas for further technical assistance related to WIOA for workforce system governance and planning.

The brief summarizes findings of the Career Pathways Descriptive and Analytical Project’s meta-analysis study, which analyzes research on the impacts of 46 career pathways programs, based on evaluation findings published between 2008 and 2021. The brief first describes the programs and participants in the evaluations included in the meta-analysis. It then discusses the study’s overall impact findings and the findings about which program characteristics were associated with impacts, as well as the implications of each for policymakers, practitioners, and researchers.

The report provides the results of an analysis of secondary data to understand how nonmedical use of prescription pain relievers varied across states, industries and occupations, and other worker characteristics.

The brief summarizes lessons learned from using machine learning to study the implementation of career pathways programs. First, this brief describes the research questions that guided the study and summarizes the machine learning methods designed for the data collection and analysis activities, including study limitations and challenges encountered. It then provides lessons learned on using machine learning methods for social science research.

The report focuses on implementation of key changes to financial and management requirements for the American Job Center (AJC) system in order to seamlessly deliver services to all workforce customers across various partners. Data for this report are drawn primarily from site visit interviews, conducted in early 2019, with administrators, board chairs and members, employer and agency partners, and frontline staff in 14 states and 28 local areas. Other sources of information include administrative data and relevant state and local documents.

The brief summarizes the input on research priorities gathered from stakeholders and experts by the WIOA Research Portfolio project team between November 2020 and April 2021. The timing of these discussions provides important context for the findings. Many discussions were held during a surge in cases of COVID-19, when social distancing measures were widespread. Other discussions were held after the vaccines were becoming widely available and restrictions were being lifted. The conversations also spanned two different presidential administrations.

The report summarizes 46 impact evaluations that focus on programs that embed elements of the career pathways approach. In the past decade, the career pathways approach to workforce development emerged as a promising strategy to promote long-term earnings advancement and self-sufficiency by helping workers attain in-demand postsecondary credentials (Fein, 2012). The approach involves a combination of rigorous and high-quality education, training, and other services to support participant success (WIOA, 2014).

The report provides the findings of the implementation of a quasi-experimental design to understand how changing labor market conditions associated with the pandemic affect opioid use.

The report of the Career Pathways Descriptive and Analytical Project focuses on “mid-level” occupations—occupations that typically require education or experience beyond a high school diploma or equivalent, but less than a four-year college degree. The report presents study findings on the magnitude of the differences between occupations in the career outcomes that entrants go on to experience within 10 years after entering, which occupations are associated with high wage growth, and what traits of occupations predict higher wage growth.

In 2021, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) funded contractor Westat Insight and their partner American Institutes for Research to conduct the Explorations in Data Innovations project under the Administrative Data Research and Analysis portfolio of studies. This use case study was designed to explore options around employing machine learning to create and maintain a public-facing, labor-related data catalog.

The report relates to an effort by the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Chief Evaluation Office (CEO), in collaboration with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), to understand how and why employers adopt voluntary consensus standards for occupational health and safety (OHS) management. This report focuses on the institutions, organizations, and processes that have emerged to support the certification of occupational health and safety management systems (OHSMS), both in the U.S. and globally.

The report describes the National Health Emergency (NHE) Demonstration Grants to Address the Opioid Crisis: Implementation Evaluation findings and considers lessons learned and practices that appear potentially promising for future efforts to provide workforce services and system investments to support people directly and indirectly affected by the opioid crisis.

The report describes the characteristics of TechHire and Strengthening Working Families Initiative (SWFI) grant programs participants, participation in services, training enrollment, training completion, credential receipt, and employment. It also examines how outcomes vary by participant characteristics. The data come from the Participant Individual Record Layout (PIRL).

The report focuses on the implementation and short-term impacts of TechHire and Strengthening Working Families Initiative (SWFI) — capturing between 7 and 14 months of follow-up—in the five programs that participated in a randomized control trial. The implementation analysis explored broad research questions about how the programs were implemented and what factors facilitated or inhibited implementation.

The report of an evaluation of strategies used in the TechHire and Strengthening Working Families Initiative (SWFI) grant programs. The evaluation includes implementation, outcomes, and impact studies. The impact study involves a randomized controlled trial of services provided by five grantees to estimate the effects of their programs on outcomes such as skill attainment, employment, and earnings. The focus of this report is the implementation study, which examines how 49 TechHire and SWFI grantees implemented their programs and the perceived effectiveness of the strategies used.

The workforce system offers work readiness training through nearly 2,400 American Job Centers (AJCs) nationwide. However, people in recovery can face unique barriers to employment not covered in traditional work readiness curricula. The brief focuses on an innovative effort, funded through a National Health Emergency Dislocated Worker Demonstration Grant to Address the Opioid Crisis to the state of New Hampshire, to adapt work readiness training for people in recovery.

Employers seeking to have recovery-friendly work places might have questions about how to better support their employees who are recovering from a substance-use disorder. Small- and medium-sized employers, in particular, might not have sufficient capacity or expertise in human resources to address potential issues that can arise.

By developing partnerships with behavioral health providers, the workforce system can reduce barriers to accessing employment and training services for people in recovery by providing these services on-site at locations where potential participants already gather and are comfortable. The brief highlights an innovative effort, funded through a National Health Emergency Dislocated Worker Demonstration Grant to Address the Opioid Crisis to the state of Pennsylvania, to provide employment services in opioid treatment clinics.

The brief draws on data collected from virtual site visits with 18 of the 23 America’s Promise Job Driven Training (America’s Promise) grant programs as part of a comprehensive implementation study to explore the development of and services provided by regional grant partnerships involving workforce development agencies, institutions of higher education, economic development agencies, employers, and community based organizations.

Community health workers (CHWs) and peer recovery specialists (PRSs) can play an important role in meeting the health care needs of people with opioid use disorder. Registered apprenticeship programs, an “earn while you learn” approach, can help build a certified workforce of CHWs and PRSs by providing classroom and on-the-job training.

The report is the first of three to present findings from the American Apprenticeship Initiative (AAI) Evaluation implementation study. This initial report primarily uses data from an online survey completed by all grantees, which documented the planning and implementation of grant-supported programs, including characteristics of grantees and their partners, strategies to engage employers, registering apprenticeship programs, identifying and recruiting apprentices, and the major components of apprenticeship programs, including related technical instruction and on-the-job learning.