CEO Library

Appendices to the National Job Corps Study: 20-Year Follow-Up Study Using Tax Data Final Report. Appendix A presents additional tables of impact results referenced in the main report. Appendix B presents additional details on the tax data, the construction of outcome variables, and analytic methods used to estimate the impacts and interpret them.

In 2019, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employment and Training Administration to fund contractors MDRC and Abt Associates to develop research and evaluation framework options that will support the Department of Labor’s efforts to ensure a strategic, continuous learning process responsive to Job Corps’ evidence-building needs.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS) is an employment-based, random-sample survey of U.S. crop workers that collects demographic, employment, and health data in face-to-face interviews. The survey began in Federal Fiscal Year (FY) 1989; since then over 66,000 workers have been interviewed. The primary purposes of the NAWS are to monitor the terms and conditions of agricultural employment and assess the conditions of farmworkers. The survey also generates information for various Federal agencies that oversee farmworker programs.

In 2017, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) and funded contractor Mathematica Policy Research to conduct Data on Earnings: A Review of Resources for Research and Comparing Job Training Impact Estimates Using Survey and Administrative Data under the Administrative Data Research and Analysis portfolio of studies. The descriptive analyses aim to review potential opportunities and implications of using different

The report documents and explores the strengths and drawbacks of data sources commonly used to produce impact estimates for evaluations of workforce development programs. Specifically, researchers use information from the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Adult and Dislocated Worker Programs Gold Standard Evaluation to examine three data sources used to evaluate the impacts of access to services provided by the public workforce system’s Adult and Dislocated Worker programs, two of the largest, publicly-funded workforce development programs in the nation.

The report presents interim findings of the Pathways evaluation consisting of an implementation study and a descriptive outcomes study. The purpose of the outcomes study is to document program outputs and participant outcomes. The purpose of the implementation study is to:

With a growing need for a more skilled workforce, providing effective and efficient employment and training services is an important national priority. First authorized under the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA) and then reauthorized in 2014 under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), the Adult and Dislocated Worker programs are two of the nation’s largest publicly funded programs providing employment and training services.

Technical Supplement to the Providing Public Workforce Services to Job Seekers: 30-Month Impact Findings on the WIA Adult and Dislocated Worker Programs Final Report that provides details of the study’s methodological approach, sensitivity analysis of impact estimates, detailed tables of survey means and impacts for all customers, detailed tables of survey means and impacts for adults, detailed tables of survey means and impacts for dislo

The literature review summarizes key challenges and strategies of states operating unemployment insurance (UI) programs during the Great Recession and its aftermath. Except when noted otherwise, “states” is used to refer to the 53 UI jurisdictions in the United States. This includes the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It is based on a targeted literature review for the U.S.

Making the successful transition to adulthood has become increasingly difficult for many young people in the United States, particularly for those without a college education. Those without a high school degree face even tougher prospects, with especially high unemployment rates and falling wages. A typical worker without a high school diploma earns less today than the same worker did in the 1970s. YouthBuild is a program that attempts to improve prospects for less-educated young people, serving over 10,000 individuals each year at over 250 organizations nationwide.

The Employer Perspectives Study describes strong employer-community college partnerships. It draws insights from employers identified by colleges as partners that have contributed to their programs. Abt Associates and the Urban Institute, with their partners Capital Research Corporation and the George Washington University, (the research team) interviewed 41 employers to better understand their perspective of what constitutes a strong partnership with a college.

The Enhanced Transitional Jobs Demonstration (ETJD), funded by the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), tested seven transitional jobs programs that targeted people recently released from prison or low-income parents who had fallen behind in child support payments. The ETJD programs were “enhanced” in various ways relative to programs studied in the past. MDRC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization, led the project along with two partners: Abt Associates and MEF Associates.

The brief presents an overview of key institutional features of the AJC service delivery system across the country that shape day-to-day operations and customer experiences. To do this, researchers identify common patterns and variations in (1) administrative One-Stop Operator structure and AJC management, (2) AJC partner programs and staffing, (3) funding and resource sharing, (4) data systems and sharing, and (5) AJC services.

The brief describes the role and activities of One-Stop Operators in 40 comprehensive American Job Centers (AJCs). It provides an overview of the types of entities that served as Operators, the roles that Operators played, common supervision models, and the key activities of AJC managers in day-to-day center operations. It concludes with a description of Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) One-Stop Operator requirements and identifies some general concerns raised about these changes as local areas prepared for their implementation.

The brief describes how 40 comprehensive American Job Centers (AJCs) selected to participate in the Institutional Analysis of AJCs shared resources. It opens by reviewing resource sharing requirements under Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA) and Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), and then outlines the extent to which the study AJCs shared resources at the time of the study's data collection.

The brief discusses key features and experiences of 12 America Job Centers (AJCs) in the America Job Centers Institutional Analysis study that were located in rural areas. It focuses on AJCs as the unit of service delivery, which is a narrower focus than prior studies of the rural workforce system as a whole. Therefore, the findings offer insight into frontline service delivery and system-wide planning in addition to an update on the persistence of previously-identified challenges in rural service delivery.

To systematically document key characteristics and features of American Job Centers (AJCs), Mathematica and its partners—Social Policy Research Associates, The George Washington University, and Capital Research Corporation—conducted the America Job Centers’ Institutional Analysis for the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL).

Earnings are a key outcome in evaluating the impact of job training and other employment- oriented assistance programs. Adequate and sustained earnings provide a reliable measure of success for these interventions and contribute to other positive outcomes as well. Accordingly, high quality data on the income earned from employment—including self-employment—are an essential component of any analysis that seeks to understand the consequences of participating in an employment-assistance program.

The compendium presents a summary of findings from the planning and implementation phases of the Linking to Employment Activities Pre-Release (LEAP) pilots, and includes 10 issue briefs organized around key themes that emerged during the evaluation of LEAP.

To help individuals successfully reenter society after time in jail, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) awarded $10 million in grants to 20 local workforce development boards (LWDBs) in June 2015 for the Linking to Employment Activities Pre-Release (LEAP) initiative. Central to the LEAP initiative was creating jail-based American Job Centers (AJCs) with direct linkages to community-based AJCs. A complex array of factors including jail and local community characteristics influenced the development and operations of jail-based AJCs as well as the experiences and outcomes of participants.

Executive summary of the Developing American Job Centers in Jails: Implementation of the Linking to Employment Activities Pre-Release (LEAP) Grants Final Report.

The brief discusses how jail-based American Job Center (AJC) staff assessed inmates’ needs and goals, prepared employment and service plans, and delivered services to address participants’ barriers before their transition to the community and the workforce.

The brief describes Linking to Employment Activities Pre-Release (LEAP) participants’ experiences, their impressions of the staff they encountered, and their suggestions for improvement, based on data from 18 pre-release and 9 post-release focus groups. Of the 3,110 LEAP participants enrolled as of June 2017, 104 attended the focus groups.

The Linking to Employment Activities Pre-release (LEAP) grants sought to create a stronger linkage between pre- and post-release employment services for justice-involved individuals. Case management—coordinating services for and working directly with clients—is an important aspect of that linkage. In the LEAP sites, interactions with case managers played a role in shaping participants’ experiences with employment services in the jail, and their engagement.