Common Employment and Earnings Pathways for Individuals Eligible for Short-Term Training Programs: Findings from the TechHire/Strengthening Working Families Initiative Evaluation Issue Brief

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Release Date: January 10, 2025

Common Employment and Earnings Pathways for Individuals Eligible for Short-Term Training Programs: Findings from the TechHire/Strengthening Working Families Initiative Evaluation Issue Brief

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Topic

Community College ,  Data, Methods, and Tools ,  Employment and Training

Research Methods

Study Population

DOL Partner Agency

U.S. Regions

About the Brief

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Interest and participation in short-term training programs have increased in recent years, highlighting the need to understand how program participants’ employment and earnings change over time. Looking only at participants’ average outcomes at specific points in time overlooks the potential variation in people’s experiences over time.

The H-1B TechHire Partnership Grants (TechHire) and the Strengthening Working Families Initiative (SWFI) were designed to provide funding for programs that would make training more accessible to individuals who might otherwise experience barriers to training and help participants enter middle- and high-skill jobs in high-tech industries upon completing training. A national evaluation of all the programs includes an impact study of five programs.

This issue brief explores the question: What are the most common three-year employment and earnings pathways followed by people in the TechHire/SWFI impact study? The researchers used an innovative approach—combining social sequence and cluster analyses—to identify and then group the three-year employment and earnings pathways followed by people in the study.

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Research Questions

  • What are the most common three-year employment and earnings pathways followed by people in the TechHire/SWFI impact study?

Key Takeaways

  • People in the impact study followed a range of three-year employment and earnings pathways, from being in a pathway defined by having stable employment with relatively high earnings (the most common pathway, followed by around one-third of people) to being mostly not employed.
  • Within each pathway, people, for the most part, maintained the same employment and earnings status over the three-year period.
  • Similar rates of people in the TechHire/SWFI and control groups followed each of the identified pathways.

Citation

Vermette, J., Schaberg, K., (2024). Westat. Common Employment and Earnings Pathways for Individuals Eligible for Short-Term Training Programs: Findings from the TechHire/SWFI Evaluation. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

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The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) sponsors independent evaluations and research, primarily conducted by external, third-party contractors in accordance with the Department of Labor Evaluation Policy and CEO’s research development process.