Up to $6M in grants available to states to improve workforce data collection

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Labor today announced the availability of approximately $6 million in grants for the fourth round of the Workforce Data Quality Initiative, a program designed to improve the quality and availability of workforce data and help states to better understand how education and workforce development programs complement each other.

These funds will enable up to 6 states to build or expand databases that connect workforce and education data in order to track the earnings of workers over the long term. Grantees will be expected to use these longitudinal databases to: conduct research and analysis aimed at determining the effectiveness of workforce and education programs and develop tools to better inform customers about the benefits of the publicly-funded workforce system.

"This funding will help the public workforce system improve how they deliver services to workers, while also providing those workers with information on which program will best serve their needs," said Eric M. Seleznow, acting assistant secretary of labor for employment and training.

This grant opportunity stems from the administration's focus on access to high-quality data, and it is a sister initiative to the U.S. Department of Education's Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems Grant Program's efforts to build longitudinal education databases.

Grants awards are available across the country to single-state grantees. A total of 29 states have been awarded grants through the first three rounds of this program.

Successful applicants will be expected to achieve multiple goals during the three-year grant period. These include:

• developing or improving state workforce longitudinal data systems with individual-level information;
• enabling workforce data to be matched with education data to create longitudinal data systems;
• improving the quality and breadth of the data in the workforce data systems;
• using longitudinal data to provide useful information about program operations;
• analyzing the performance of education and employment training programs; and
• providing user-friendly information to consumers, in the form of scorecards or integrated digital platforms, to help them select the training and education programs that best suit their needs.

To find out more about the WDQI grantees, visit http://www.doleta.gov/performance/workforcedatagrant09.cfm.