Three-Year Impacts of the TechHire and Strengthening Working Families Initiative Grant Programs Impact Study Report

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Release Date: January 10, 2025

Three-Year Impacts of the TechHire and Strengthening Working Families Initiative Grant Programs Impact Study Report

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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 Report

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In 2016, the Department of Labor’s (DOL) Chief Evaluation Office, in partnership with the Employment and Training Administration, contracted with Westat and its partner MDRC (the evaluation team) to conduct an evaluation of the strategies used in the H-1B TechHire Partnership (TechHire) and Strengthening Working Families Initiative (SWFI) grant programs and measure the programs’ impacts on participants’ outcomes. DOL and the evaluation team selected five of the 53 TechHire and SWFI programs to participate in a randomized controlled trial, or impact study. Understanding the extent to which the TechHire/SWFI programs met their goal of helping people enter quality jobs in high-tech industries (beyond what they could have done on their own) can inform the design of future similar grant programs and provide insights into what services may be needed to achieve this goal.

Between April 2018 and January 2020, 952 people enrolled in the impact study across the five selected programs. The evaluation team then estimated the impacts of the programs by comparing the difference in the average outcomes of individuals who were assigned at random to be able to access the TechHire/SWFI services (the TechHire/SWFI group) and individuals who were assigned to not (the control group).

This impact study report looks at the effectiveness of the programs around three years after people entered the study. By Year 3, people in the study were expected to have completed training (which at the TechHire/SWFI programs ranged from three months to two years) and obtained a job.

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Research Questions

  • What are the impacts of the TechHire and SWFI programs on participants’ employment and earnings three years after study entry?

Key Takeaways

  • Through three years of follow up, the TechHire and SWFI programs did not have an effect on participants’ employment or earnings.
  • In Year 3, around 76 percent of participants in the TechHire/SWFI group and 80 percent of participants in the control group were employed at some point.
  • Participants in both groups earned around $22,000, on average, in Year 3.

Citation

Vermette, J., Schaberg, K., Gasper, J. (2024). Westat. Three-Year Impacts of the TechHire and Strengthening Working Families Initiative Grant Programs. 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.