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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 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 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

In 2021, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) to fund contractor Manhattan Strategy Group to conduct a literature review on the employment impacts of training vouchers and cash transfer programs.

The literature review examined studies related to cash transfers and training voucher programs, through a search of the literature using the bibliographic databases/search engines Google Scholar, JSTOR, and ProQuest Social Science Premium and searched for terms expressing the concepts of interest: cash transfers and training vouchers, as well as specific training voucher programs identified in the search. The resources database of the National Bureau of Economic Research was also searched for additional relevant works.

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.

View Homeless Veterans’ Reintegration Program Evaluation Addendum to this plan published in March 2024.

The report presents findings from the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS), collected from face-to-face interviews with 2,586 crop workers interviewed between October 1, 2016, and September 30, 2018. It is organized into nine chapters, each beginning with a summary of the chapter’s key findings.

The report documents findings from an implementation study, describing how the Ready to Work (RTW) Partnership grantees’ programs were implemented over the full term of the grants, the institutional benefits the grantees anticipated would be sustained after the grants ended, and lessons for current workforce programs. Future reports, to be released in 2021 and 2022, will examine the impact of the four RTW programs on participants’ education and employment outcomes. Findings from this implementation study will be important in interpreting those impact results.

This brief documents findings from the Ready to Work (RTW) Partnership Grant Evaluation, describing how the grantees’ programs were implemented over the full term of the grant, the institutional benefits the grantees anticipated would be sustained after the grants ended, and lessons for current workforce programs. Future reports, to be released in 2021 and 2022, will examine the impact of the four programs on participants’ education and employment outcomes. Findings from this implementation study will be important in interpreting those impact results.

The report describes recent and long-term economic and policy developments with relevance for the public workforce system. This research evidence scan is one of a pair of reports developed as part of DOL’s WIOA Research Portfolio project. The companion report is A Research Evidence Scan of Key Strategies Related to the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) Report  (Deutsch et al. 2021).

In 2016, the Chief Evaluation Office partnered with the Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) to fund researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston to understand the prevalence, nature, and possible consequences of working conditions on employment and health status of the Central American workforce, with a particular focus on work-related violence.

The report discusses and presents the outputs of a Cooperative Agreement between The University of Texas School Health Science Center at Houston School of Public Health and the Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) and the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL).

This is a companion document to the Worker Paid Leave Usage Simulation model, or Worker PLUS model, and is part of two supplementary resources on administrative costs. The second supplementary resource is an Excel template, titled “Administrative Cost Excel Template,” which presents a starting template of standard administrative cost categories observed in paid family and medical leave (PFML) programs as a platform to plan, estimate, and test the administrative costs of running a new program. The Excel template is available to users when they download the model.

This is a companion template to the Worker Paid Leave Usage Simulation model, or Worker PLUS model, and is part of two supplementary resources on administrative costs. It is a starting template of standard administrative cost categories observed in paid family and medical leave (PFML) programs as a platform to plan, estimate, and test the administrative costs of running a new program. The Excel template is available to users when they download the model.

To help researchers, policy analysts, and interested members of the public gain better understanding of the Worker Paid Leave Usage Simulation (Worker PLUS) Model and its applications in policy analysis, researchers present an issue brief series to supplement the model documentation files.

In 2017, the Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) funded contractors IMPAQ International and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) to conduct the Microsimulation Model on Worker Leave. The goal of the study was to produce an updated, open-source, publicly available simulation tool based on the Albelda Clayton-Matthews/IWPR Paid Family and Medical Leave Simulation Model (ACM model).

The brief provides a step-by-step guide to performing example simulations using the Worker Paid Leave Usage Simulation (Worker PLUS) model. With this guide, users should be able to replicate the provided example of model running using either the Python or the R simulation engine, and to check how the simulation results compare against actual program data for existing state programs in California, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.

In the issue brief, researchers use simulation results from the Worker Paid Leave Usage Simulation (Worker PLUS) Model to analyze the impacts of moving from the unpaid leave system under the current Family and Medical Leave Act to a system that includes a paid leave program that adopts the program rules of the existing program in California. The population considered consists of individuals who work in the state of Maryland who meet the eligibility rules of the California program, and among them, the low-wage workers who earn no more than $30,000 annually.

In the issue brief, researchers provide a benchmarking study of the Worker Paid Leave Usage Simulation (Worker PLUS) Model simulation results. The results from the Worker PLUS model are compared to those from an existing paid leave simulation model developed by Albelda and Clayton-Matthews (2017, the ACM model) and actual program administrative data. Simulation results compared include program benefit outlays and program participation for three state paid leave programs in California, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.