This report summarizes the long-term findings of a rigorous random assignment evaluation of the WorkAdvance model, a sectoral training and advancement initiative. Launched in 2011, WorkAdvance goes beyond the previous generation of employment programs by introducing demand-driven skills training and a focus on jobs that have identifiable career…

One in every six adults in the United States is an immigrant. These immigrant adults contribute to the vitality of local communities and economies across the country, but many also face barriers to integration and economic mobility, including limited English proficiency, varied levels of formal education, and persistent employment in low-wage…

Public data and accountability are key to an inclusive economic recovery. We need data on how different workers and businesses are faring in the recovery, so we can hold policymakers accountable to equitable outcomes for those most impacted. Disparities and inequities in skills training programs can only be eliminated if there is high-quality…

Impressions are influential. Through more than 40,000 interviews of people aged 25 and over in the European Union (EU), Norway and Iceland, this survey explores people's impressions about adult learning and continuing vocational education and training (CVET), which are central to enabling adults acquire the knowledge, skills and competences they…

Impressions are influential. Through more than 40,000 interviews of people aged 25 and over in the European Union, Norway and Iceland, Cedefop's second opinion survey explores people's impressions about adult learning and continuing vocational education and training (CVET), which are central to enabling adults acquire the knowledge, skills and…

The Office of Workforce Development (OWD) in New Orleans, Louisiana, with a grant from the U.S. Department of Labor, implemented Career Pathways, an innovative program designed to increase the local talent pool and help lower-skilled, unemployed, and underemployed individuals train for work in growing fields. RAND Corporation researchers evaluated…

This paper builds a model of human capital accumulation driven by increasing specialization of the workforce. Individuals increase the efficiency of time dedicated to human capital acquisition by focusing investments on narrower sets of skills. The evolution of secondary and post-secondary curricula in the United States from 1870-2000 confirms the…

The ethnic and racial diversity of the residents of the United States of America is one of our country's unique strengths. However, Black, Latinx, Pacific Islander, Native, and certain Asian American workers face wide racial inequities in educational attainment, employment, and income. Immigrants and English learners, the majority of whom are…

There is a longstanding debate about whether helping welfare recipients quickly find work or helping them to first obtain some basic education and training better improves their economic well-being. This brief contributes to the debate by presenting long-term findings from three sites in the seven-site National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work…

As policy makers have placed an increasing focus on training and preparing workers to obtain postsecondary credentials, questions remain about the value to various actors, especially for job seekers and workers who often invest time and money to obtain a credential with the hopes of improving their employment prospects and raising their earnings.…

This paper investigates early employment influences on postsecondary expectations and enrolment for working men and women who have recently completed high school in the United States. We find that young workers still have very high expectations for postsecondary education, but that women are more likely to enrol. However, this difference is…

The ethnic and racial diversity of the residents of the United States of America is one of the country's unique strengths; however, Black, Latinx, Pacific Islander, Native, and certain Asian American workers face wide racial inequities in educational attainment, employment, and income. Additional workforce policies are needed now to counter…

There are 29 million "middle jobs" in the United States that pay $35,000 or more on average and don't require a Bachelor's degree. There are five Career and Technical Education (CTE) pathways that educate and train Americans for these jobs: employer-based training, industry-based certifications, apprenticeships, postsecondary certificates, and…

For recent high school graduates, life is tough. In the past year, one in four young high school graduates was unemployed and over half were underemployed. In the past decade, recent high school graduates' wages have fallen by 12 percent to just $19,400 annually in 2011, below the poverty threshold for a family of four. The downward plight of high…

This article examines the effect of the Massachusetts workforce development system on the earnings of disadvantaged adults using nonexperimental data from the late 1990s. The authors construct a comparison sample for program participants using individuals who apply for and are offered services yet do not participate in a training program. They…