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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). The scan focuses primarily on topics and trends related to the changing world of work and their implications for the public workforce system.

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Research Questions

• What does the literature state about the effectiveness of the most common strategies implemented under WIOA, both at the national and the state level?
• What gaps are there in the literature, both at the national level and the state level, regarding the full portfolio of WIOA programs and services?
• How have states integrated research and evaluation into their implementation of WIOA services? What barriers do they encounter when doing so?
• What implications do recent policy and economic developments have on future research projects related to workforce programs and the different target populations relevant to WIOA programs?

Key Takeaways

• Unemployment rates, labor participation rates, and projections for employment by industry have changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s economic fallout, in some cases substantially.
• Technological advancements, including the rise of automation, have led to shifts in the type of skills demanded by the employers particularly during the pandemic.
• The pandemic necessitated the acceleration and expansion of remote and virtual workforce services.

Research Gaps

• Gig work may grow in future years due to technological advances, among other factors, and experts advise ongoing improvement in data collection and analysis in order to understand the gig workforce… the workforce system needs to develop effective strategies for serving much larger numbers of dislocated workers with particular needs than it has in recent years. To do so, effective practices on serving these types of dislocated workers need to be disseminated to the system or – if such research has not yet been conducted – research on this topic should be carried out. (page 10)

Citation

Mack, M., Dunham, K. (2021). Mathematica. The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA): Research Portfolio A Scan of Key Trends in the Labor Market and Workforce Development System. 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.