About the Literature Review

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The report is a high-level review of the literature on strategies that increase opportunities for employment in Non-Traditional Occupations (NTOs) – defined by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) as occupations where specific populations and subpopulations are traditionally under-represented among the industry’s workforce. The specific focus of this review is to address an individual’s barriers to entering NTOs with strategies appropriate for delivery within the public workforce system.

This report presents findings from the first phase of DOL’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) contract with IMPAQ International and its partners – the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and the National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity. These findings informed discussions and in-depth investigation of certain strategies that served as the base for the project’s second phase – program demonstration and research. Both the scope of the review and the presentation of findings were organized to help guide decision-making related to the feasibility of implementing a demonstration.

Key Takeaways

• Strategies that involve workplace and career opportunities related to NTOs have been extensively used to achieve better employment and earning outcomes for women and minority populations.
• Designed to counteract lack of occupational training or inadequate skill sets among workers, apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs can be especially useful in providing valuable skills and high wage jobs to minority groups.
• Institutional change to companies or other key organizations in an industry involve reshaping organizational structure and policy to create a less imbalanced environment for one or more NTO populations.
• Strategies associated with targeted recruitment practices and materials are designed to correct inaccurate perceptions of NTOs, mitigate the inhibitions of NTO populations regarding these fields, and highlight the benefits of NTOs.

Citation

Poe-Yamagata, E., Nanda, N., Corea, C., Roy, M., Patterson, L. (2018). IMPAQ International. Feasibility Study and Evaluation of Nontraditional Occupation Demonstrations: Literature Review Report. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

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This study was sponsored by the Employment and Training Administration, Office of Policy Development and Research, Division of Research and Evaluation, and was produced outside of CEO’s standard research development process.