Check out this Aspen Institute research study … a formative evaluation of five workforce organizations’ experiences during the Human Capital Innovation Fund Initiative3.10.17_Investing-in-Workforce-Program-Innovation
Category Archives: Research Corner
Opportunity Rising Los Angeles Disconnected Young Adults
This infographic summary provides key facts on disconnected youth (ages 18-24) and the education and labor market settings in the Los Angeles region. The information is pulled from a set of reports by Dr. Neeta Fogg and Dr. Paul Harrington at Drexel University’s Center for Labor Markets and Policy. Full reports can be found at: wiblacity.org/index.php/aboutthe-wdb/wdb-reports
In April 2015, the Aspen Institute Workforce Strategies Initiative jointly launched the Communities that Work Partnership with the US Economic Development Administration. The purpose of this initiative was to document and accelerate the development of employer-led regional workforce initiatives across the country. Seven competitively-selected sites — in Arizona, California, the District of Columbia, Georgia, New York (upstate and NYC), and Texas — participated in a learning exchange focused on bridging economic and workforce development to strengthen local talent pipelines and improve access to quality employment.
A new study finds that skills and credentials are crucial to helping SNAP participants move to self-sufficiency. The SNAP Employment and Training (E&T) Best Practices Study concludes that programs that emphasize postsecondary education and training responsive to the labor market have a better chance of improving the employment and earnings prospects of participants.
States looking to establish skills-based SNAP E&T policies can use a new policy toolkit released by NSC last month.
Over the next four years there is an opportunity to put millions of Americans on a pathway toward a good paying, middle-skill job, and to do so in a manner that will bring greater capacity and profits to millions of U.S. companies, particularly small- and medium-size firms that need and want to hire locally to fill skilled positions. The Skills for Good Jobs Agenda offers concrete goals and proposals for the next president to achieve this vision.
In September 2013, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) awarded grants to two states, New York and Massachusetts, to operate Pay for Success (PFS) pilot projects. The PFS model, which uses financing from private sector and philanthropic sources, is thought to have the potential to promote innovation and to allow evidence-based practices to be scaled up, thus improving social or environmental outcomes for people and communities.
The two DOL grants, awarded to the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development (EOLWD) and the New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL), were for approximately $12 million each. Both states also committed state funds to continue the pilots beyond the DOL grant period. Both projects focus on improving employment outcomes and reducing recidivism among newly released ex-offenders. The Massachusetts project targets young male parolees, while the New York pilot focuses on adult ex-offenders generally.
Drawing on experiences of 28 randomly selected Local Workforce Investment Areas (local areas), this issue brief provides cost estimates for five Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA) Adult and Dislocated Worker programs’ services: visits to the resource room, structured assessments, job clubs, workshops, and one-on-one counselor meetings. Key findings include:
- Resource room visits and structured assessments were the least costly services—an average of $16 per visit and $13 per assessment.
- One-on-one counselor meetings cost the most—$143 per hour-long meeting, on average.
- Service costs differed considerably across local areas. These differences were associated with variation in staff members’ salaries, the amount of time spent delivering services, and the local areas’ overhead costs.
- Resource room costs and one-on-one counseling meetings were largest, on average, in larger local areas. Visits to a resource room were, on average, most expensive in urban areas.
The creation of specialized American Job Centers (AJCs) in jails requires that workforce development agencies and corrections agencies learn about and adjust to each other’s organizational cultures, including priorities, rules, assumptions, and decision-making processes. Although 16 of the 20 local workforce investment boards that received Linking to Employment Activities Pre-release (LEAP) grants had previously provided post-release services to transitioning offenders, only four had prior experience with providing pre-release services in jails. This brief draws on data from visits to all 20 LEAP sites and focuses on the strategies the grantees used during the early planning and implementation period to build common ground between jail and workforce staff in promoting successful reentry for participants.
There is a longstanding debate about whether the economic well-being of welfare recipients is improved more by helping them quickly find work or helping them to first obtain some basic education and training. This brief contributes to the debate by presenting long-term findings from three sites in the seven-site National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies, a multiyear random assignment study designed to test the effects of different approaches. At these three sites, the MDRC research team randomly assigned individuals to initially look for work, initially receive basic education or training services, or have no access to welfare-to-work program services (the control group), and subsequently, as part of the original study, followed these individuals for five years. The brief extends the follow-up period, presenting the effects of the interventions during a period that falls roughly 10 to 15 years after individuals entered the study. In general, the findings provide compelling evidence that both types of welfare-to-work programs can increase welfare recipients’ earnings, compared with not offering such services. While the approach stressing initial job search led to greater earnings in the short term than did the approach stressing initial education and training, neither approach produced substantial effects past the five-year follow-up period.
A new paper by National Skills Coalition and National Youth Employment Coalitionfinds that well-designed work-based learning opportunities can provide youth with occupational and work readiness training while providing income support for disconnected and at-risk youth. The paper examines four different work-based learning strategies, illustrates key elements of success, identifies challenges, and makes policy recommendations to address those challenges.
