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Thomas E. PerezSecretary
Department of Labor (DOL)
Mission
Overview
The Department of Labor (DOL) has identified three Priority Goals that include measures selected from among 23 Departmental performance goals. These Priority Goals, together with DOL’s five strategic goals and their underlying performance goals and measures, serve to support the Secretary’s vision of good jobs for everyone and DOL’s mission as described in the Department’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2014-2018 Strategic Plan.
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Strategic Goals & Objectives
Agencies establish a variety of organizational goals to drive progress toward key outcomes for the American people. Long-term strategic goals articulate clear statements of what the agency wants to achieve to advance its mission and address relevant national problems, needs, challenges and opportunities. Strategic objectives define the outcome or management impact the agency is trying to achieve, and also include the agency's role. Each strategic objective is tracked through a suite of performance goals, indicators and other evidence.
Strategic Goal:
Prepare workers for better jobs
Statement:
Prepare workers for better jobs
Strategic Objectives
Statement:
Advance employment opportunities for US workers in 21st century demand sectors and occupations using proven training models and through increased employer engagement and partnerships.
Description:
The Employment and Training Administration (ETA) is responsible for providing opportunity for workers and job seekers to attain the skills and training they need to succeed in a recovering economy. The Employment and Training Administration (ETA) is responsible for providing opportunity for workers and job seekers to attain the skills and training they need to succeed in a recovering economy. DOL’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS) provides training and transition programs that increase the opportunity of veterans to transition successfully to a civilian workforce. The agency works collaboratively with ETA to ensure veterans receive enhanced services at one of the 2,600 American Jobs Centers around the country, and undertakes a series of programs specifically designed to meet the needs of veterans transitioning to the civilian workforce. In addition, VETS protects the employment and reemployment rights of service members under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA).
Priority Goal: Increase the percent of participants who receive intensive services provided by Disabled Veterans Outreach Program specialists, with a focus on improving employment outcomes for veterans.
Statement:
By September 30, 2015, increase to 75 percent of participants served by Disabled Veterans' Outreach specialists who receive intensive services.
Description:
As large numbers of service members and veterans return to the civilian labor force, they are met by an improving but still-challenging labor market. Veterans, service members, and their families still face significant barriers to entering and maintaining meaningful employment. This is especially true for veterans with significant barriers to employment, including those with a service-connected disability, the educationally or economically disadvantaged, and veterans ages 18-24, who experience historically high unemployment.
Additionally, the last several decades have seen significant shifts in the American economy and workplace. Globalization, outsourcing, the shift from manufacturing to service sector jobs, the rise of technology, the decline in unionization, and the changing ethnic and gender make-up of the population, have changed the physical, social, and cultural landscape of the workforce. Today’s employers increasingly rely on highly-skilled workers with post-secondary degrees, state licensure, or other credentials. Veterans’ transferable skills (gained in past jobs and in the service) can help meet the needs of employers in the 21st century.
Statement:
Provide marketable skills and knowledge to increase workers' income and help them overcome barriers to the middle class through partnerships among business, education, labor, community organizations, and the workforce system
Description:
As the economy recovers and job growth returns, the public workforce system has a critical role to play in ensuring that job seekers and employers have access to the skills they need to compete and succeed. The Department recognizes that more credentialing can help lay the human capital foundation necessary to support new and growing sectors of the economy. Investing in skills development not only helps individuals return to work, but also helps workers obtain the measurable and specific skills they need to move along directed career pathways, while giving employers access to the skilled workers they need to compete globally. Therefore, the Department committed to the Agency Priority Goal of increasing credential attainment by public workforce system participants. This goal reflects a growing appreciation of the urgent need for a more highly-skilled workforce to compete in today’s global economy and supports the Administration’s efforts to increase skill development opportunities for American workers, particularly those most disadvantaged in the current economic climate.
Statement:
Advance workers' rights, acceptable work conditions, and livelihoods, particularly for the world's vulnerable populations.
Description:
Preparing workers for better jobs is fundamental to enacting the Secretary’s vision of promoting and protecting opportunity. Investing in workers and empowering them to earn the skills they need to succeed in durable, sustainable careers is one way the Labor Department contributes to President Obama’s plan to rebuild the middle class. To grow the economy from the middle out, workers need the opportunity to equip themselves with the right competencies and employers need access to a skilled domestic workforce required to compete in a 21st century global economy. While the Department serves all workers, it maintains a focus on the hardest to serve populations, assuring that these groups expand their economic opportunities and do not get left behind. The Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) protects opportunities for American businesses and workers to compete on a level playing field internationally, by working to improve worker rights and livelihoods for vulnerable populations across the globe.
Strategic Goal:
Ensure workplaces are safe and healthy
Statement:
Ensure workplaces are safe and healthy
Strategic Objectives
Statement:
Secure safe and healthy workplaces, particularly in high-risk industries.
Description:
In the wealthiest Nation on earth, no mother or father should have to die for a paycheck. America’s working men and women deserve the opportunity to provide for their families without unnecessary risk to their health, safety, and livelihood. The Labor Department both promotes and protects the opportunity that has made America the country it is today, and American families are safer, more secure, and more prosperous because of it.
All workers have a right to a safe and healthful work environment. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) recognize that some workers are more vulnerable than others and that some workplaces are more hazardous than others. By strategically scheduling inspections and outreach in high-risk areas, in addition to completing mandated enforcement activity, DOL expects to have the greatest effect on overall compliance. With more employers in compliance, workplace injuries, fatalities, and illnesses should decline – the ultimate outcome for DOL and American workers and a critical component of the Secretary’s vision.
Priority Goal: Secure safe and healthy workplaces, particularly in high-risk industries.
Statement:
By September 30, 2015, increase the number of abated workplace hazards associated with falls, through inspections at workplaces covered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and reduce worker fatality rates in mining by five percent per year based on a rolling five-year average.
Description:
Each year, thousands of workers are killed and millions are injured on the job due to unsafe working conditions.[1] Department of Labor (DOL) agencies charged with improving workplace safety and health will use rigorous enforcement, science-based rulemaking, and stakeholder involvement to achieve this crucial strategic goal.
All workers have a right to a safe and healthful work environment. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) recognize that some workers are more vulnerable than others and that some workplaces are more hazardous than others. By strategically conducting inspections and outreach in high-risk areas, in addition to completing mandated enforcement activity, DOL expects to have the greatest effect on overall compliance. With more employers in compliance, workplace injuries, fatalities, and illnesses should decline – the ultimate outcome for DOL and American workers.
Therefore, the Department will continue its commitment to the Agency Priority Goal of reducing injuries, illnesses and fatalities.
[1] 2011 Injuries, Illnesses and Fatalities. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Available at www.bls.gov/iif/.
Priority Goals
Statement:
By September 30, 2015, increase the number of abated workplace hazards associated with falls, through inspections at workplaces covered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and reduce worker fatality rates in mining by five percent per year based on a rolling five-year average.
Description:
Each year, thousands of workers are killed and millions are injured on the job due to unsafe working conditions.[1] Department of Labor (DOL) agencies charged with improving workplace safety and health will use rigorous enforcement, science-based rulemaking, and stakeholder involvement to achieve this crucial strategic goal.
All workers have a right to a safe and healthful work environment. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) recognize that some workers are more vulnerable than others and that some workplaces are more hazardous than others. By strategically conducting inspections and outreach in high-risk areas, in addition to completing mandated enforcement activity, DOL expects to have the greatest effect on overall compliance. With more employers in compliance, workplace injuries, fatalities, and illnesses should decline – the ultimate outcome for DOL and American workers.
Therefore, the Department will continue its commitment to the Agency Priority Goal of reducing injuries, illnesses and fatalities.
[1] 2011 Injuries, Illnesses and Fatalities. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Available at www.bls.gov/iif/.
Strategic Goal:
Promote fair and high quality work environments
Statement:
Assure fair and high quality work-life environments
Strategic Objectives
Statement:
Break down barriers to fair and diverse workplaces so that every worker's contribution is respected
Description:
The vibrancy of the American economy depends upon the effective use of all of the Nation’s labor resources. Discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran not only adversely impacts America’s workers and families, but also inhibits economic growth. The Secretary of Labor’s vision of promoting and protecting opportunity includes ensuring that Americans work in workplaces that value diversity and are free from discrimination.
Statement:
Protect workers' rights
Description:
The Department of Labor plays an important role in ensuring that workers can exercise workplace rights. The Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) provides safeguards that promote transparent financial practices and democratic elections among unions. OSHA, MSHA and WHD also provides a range of protections for workers who claim their rights – whether relating to their health, safety, wages, benefits, or their employers’ business practices – are being violated.
Statement:
Secure wages and overtime
Description:No Data Available
Strategic Goal:
Secure retirement, health, and other employee benefits and, for those not working, provide income security
Statement:
Secure retirement, health, and other employee benefits and, for those not working, provide income security.
Strategic Objectives
Statement:
Provide income support when work is impossible or unavailable and facilitate return to work
Description:
OWCP protects the interests of workers who are injured or become ill on the job. As a result of job-related injury or illness, workers covered by programs administered by the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs are faced with potentially devastating economic, health, employment and other challenges. Additionally, the Secretary’s vision of promoting and protecting opportunity includes a streamlined reemployment system to help unemployed job seekers return to work. A more effective and efficient workforce system expands opportunities for workers to get the skills they need, while timely and accurate payments to unemployed workers give individuals who have lost jobs the chance to stay afloat while finding their next job.
Statement:
Improve health benefits and retirement security for all workers
Description:
The Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), through its enforcement of Title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) and related health benefits laws, protects the security of retirement and health plan benefits and assets for all workers who have employer-sponsored plans. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) is a government corporation created to encourage the continuation and maintenance of private sector defined-benefit pension plans, provide timely and uninterrupted payment of pension benefits, and keep pension insurance premiums at a minimum.
Strategic Goal:
Produce timely and accurate data on the economic conditions of workers and their families
Statement:
Produce timely and accurate data on the economic conditions of workers and their families.
Strategic Objectives
Statement:
Provide sound and impartial information on labor market activity, working conditions, and price changes in the economy for decision making, including support for the formulation of economic and social policy affecting virtually all Americans
Description:
BLS is the principal Federal statistical agency responsible for measuring labor market activity, working conditions, and price changes in the economy. Its mission is to collect, analyze, and disseminate essential economic information to support public and private decision-making. Like all Federal statistical agencies, BLS executes its statistical mission with independence, serving its users by providing products and services that are accurate, objective, relevant, timely, and accessible. Policies and decisions based on BLS data affect virtually all Americans, and the wide range of BLS data products is necessary to fulfill the diverse needs of a broad customer base.
Contributions to achievement of this goal include programs administered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS); and are organized under the following agency-specific performance goal: • BLS – Improve the timeliness, accuracy, and relevance of information on labor market activity, working conditions, and price changes in the economy.
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FY16-17 Agency Priority Goals
An Agency Priority Goal is a near-term result or achievement that agency leadership wants to accomplish within approximately 24 months that relies predominantly on agency implementation as opposed to budget or legislative accomplishments. Click below to see this agency's FY16-17 Priority Goals.
Agency Priority Goal:
Statement:
Expand opportunities for workers to start new careers with good wages, and provide gateways to the middle class by increasing the number of registered apprentices.
By September 30, 2017, increase the number of registered apprentices from 450,000 as of September, 2015, to 600,000.
Description:
In 2014, President Obama challenged our nation to expand ApprenticeshipUSA, a way for companies to showcase their current work-based learning programs that meet industry and national standards for registration, and double the number of apprentices in the U.S. over the next five years. To support this challenge, the President announced new federal investments using existing funds to support job-driven Registered Apprenticeships through the American Apprenticeship Initiative. While significant progress has been made, we must add another 250,000 apprenticeships over the next two years to reach this goal.
Registered Apprenticeship programs offer workers a way to start new careers with good wages and are a proven gateway to the middleclass. Workforce organizations, community colleges, and other education and training institutions must work with employers to develop this earn-while-you-learn employment and training strategy. According to DOL data, graduates of Registered Apprenticeship programs earn an average of $60,000 a year and over 8 in 10 graduates retain their employment 9 months after exiting their apprenticeship training.[1] Every federal dollar spent on apprenticeship has yielded roughly $27, a significant return on federal investment.[2]
Building on historic bipartisan support from Congress and leadership across a broad range of states and industry partners, DOL has awarded nearly $90 million in funding appropriated for the ApprenticeshipUSA program to further the goal to double and diversify Registered Apprenticeships by 2019. The $90 million consists of strategic investments to accelerate and expand state apprenticeship strategies and grow the use of apprenticeships in new industries while ensuring that these profound educational and economic opportunities are within reach for more Americans. These new investments are the result of a bipartisan agreement to provide the first-ever programmatic funding for Registered Apprenticeship through the Fiscal Year 2016 spending bill.
[1] DOL/ETA and the Kansas Department of Commerce (Kansas) have a Memorandum of Understanding that enables ETA’s national programs access to wage records through the Wage Record Interchange System (WRIS) and the Federal Employment Data Exchange System (FEDES) in order to calculate the WIA common measures. This arrangement is the Common Reporting Information System (CRIS).
[2] See page 39 of “An Effectiveness Assessment and Cost Benefit Analysis of Registered Apprenticeship in 10 States” by Mathematica Policy Research. http://wdr.doleta.gov/research/FullText_Documents/ETAOP_2012_10.pdf
Agency Priority Goal:
Secure safe and healthy workplaces, particularly in high-risk industries.
Statement:
By September 30, 2017, increase the number of abated workplace hazards associated with falls by 0.5 percent per year compared to FY 2015 through inspections at workplaces covered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and reduce worker fatality rates in mining by two percent per year based on a rolling five-year average per 200,000 hours worked through its enhanced enforcement regime, educational outreach and training and cooperation with industry stakeholders.***
***This is a tentative target. OSHA expects two rulemakings to affect the number of hazards abated related to falls in FY 2016 – the final rule on Occupational Injury and Illness Recording and Reporting Requirements—Northern American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Update and Reporting Revisions, issued in September 2014, and the forthcoming final rule on Walking and Working Surfaces and Personal Protective Equipment (Fall Protection Systems). OSHA will continue to analyze data related to this measure and may revise the target based on the results of the analysis.
Description:
Each year, thousands of workers are killed and millions are injured or made ill on the job due to unsafe and unhealthy working conditions.[1] Department of Labor (DOL) agencies charged with improving workplace safety and health will use rigorous enforcement, science-based rulemaking, and stakeholder involvement to achieve this crucial strategic goal.
All workers have a right to a safe and healthful work environment. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) conduct inspections and outreach in high-risk areas, and complete mandated enforcement activities. DOL expects these activities to have the greatest effect on overall compliance and the ultimate reduction in workplace injuries, fatalities and illnesses. Therefore, the Department will continue its commitment to the Agency Priority Goal of reducing injuries, illnesses and fatalities.
[1] 2011 Injuries, Illnesses and Fatalities. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Available at www.bls.gov/iif/.
Agency Priority Goal:
Statement:
By September 30, 2017, VETS will remain at 90 percent of participants who receive individualized career services from Disabled Veterans' Outreach Program (DVOP) specialists.
Description:
As large numbers of service members and veterans return to the civilian labor force, they are met by an improving but still-challenging labor market. Veterans, service members, and their families still face significant barriers to entering and maintaining meaningful employment. This is especially true for veterans with significant barriers to employment, including those with a service-connected disability, the educationally or economically disadvantaged, and veterans ages 18 - 24, who have experienced historically high unemployment. Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS) intensive services, now reported as individualized career services due to the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), include comprehensive and specialized assessments of skill levels and needs, the development of an individual employment plan, group and individual career counseling and planning, and short-term skills development (such as interview and communication skills).
VETS believes that providing individualized career services to veterans leads to better outcomes. This is supported by findings from an initial study (dated January 30, 2015), conducted by the Department's Chief Evaluation Office, analyzing Wagner-Peyser and Jobs for Veterans State Grants (JVSG) data for the time period of January 2011 to March 2013. Data analysis from the study indicated the following:
- JVSG veterans, compared to non-JVSG veterans and non-veterans, exhibited the highest employment rates, highest earnings, and quickest time-to-first staff-assisted service.
- JVSG veterans have smaller gender earnings gaps and smaller military-separation-time earnings gaps.
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FY14-15 Agency Priority Goals
An Agency Priority Goal is a near-term result or achievement that agency leadership wants to accomplish within approximately 24 months that relies predominantly on agency implementation as opposed to budget or legislative accomplishments. Click below to see this agency's FY14-15 Priority Goals.
Agency Priority Goal:
Secure safe and healthy workplaces, particularly in high-risk industries.
Statement:
By September 30, 2015, increase the number of abated workplace hazards associated with falls, through inspections at workplaces covered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and reduce worker fatality rates in mining by five percent per year based on a rolling five-year average.
Description:
Each year, thousands of workers are killed and millions are injured on the job due to unsafe working conditions.[1] Department of Labor (DOL) agencies charged with improving workplace safety and health will use rigorous enforcement, science-based rulemaking, and stakeholder involvement to achieve this crucial strategic goal.
All workers have a right to a safe and healthful work environment. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) recognize that some workers are more vulnerable than others and that some workplaces are more hazardous than others. By strategically conducting inspections and outreach in high-risk areas, in addition to completing mandated enforcement activity, DOL expects to have the greatest effect on overall compliance. With more employers in compliance, workplace injuries, fatalities, and illnesses should decline – the ultimate outcome for DOL and American workers.
Therefore, the Department will continue its commitment to the Agency Priority Goal of reducing injuries, illnesses and fatalities.
[1] 2011 Injuries, Illnesses and Fatalities. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Available at www.bls.gov/iif/.
Agency Priority Goal:
Statement:
By September 30, 2015, increase the percentage of training program completers who attain industry-recognized credentials by 10 percent.
Description:
Improving the employment prospects for millions of Americans is a growing challenge for our nation. This challenge is especially acute for those who are identified as low-skilled, disadvantaged or displaced. One reason job seekers struggle to find work is that the 21st century economy requires a different skill mix from prior decades. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report released in November 2015, based on October 2015 data, indicate that more than 1.7 million of the 7.9 million unemployed adults in the U.S. lack any post-secondary degree or certificate. For adults over the age of 25 without a high school diploma or equivalent credential, the unemployment rate is 7.4 percent, and for adults with a high school diploma or equivalent credential but not a college degree, it’s 5.2 percent.[1] The immediate employment and training needs of low-skilled adults must be addressed to help this population move into the middle class, or for those that are in the middle class, to help them remain there. As the economy recovers, we find that low-skilled adults are being left behind.
Workforce skills are the key to a strong economy and a thriving middle class. The U.S. has the most talented and resilient workforce in the world. We have to invest in them. We have to create more career pathways for them, more opportunities to acquire the credentials that employers demand. We need to build our human capital - and we have to do it in a smart, strategic, efficient way.
The economic downturn has had lingering effects on both low-skilled adults and employers. Industries such as manufacturing that previously employed a large number of adults without post-secondary training are now seeking replacement workers with post-secondary credentials. Drivers of the economy will be concentrated in industry sectors and occupations that require some post-secondary education or training. Data from BLS indicate that occupations that usually require a post-secondary degree or other credential are expected to account for nearly half of all new jobs from 2008 to 2018, and one-third of job openings. While labor market projections and employer surveys point to a strong and growing demand for skilled workers, education attainment levels in the U.S. are declining. Declining rates of postsecondary credential attainment threaten America's global competitiveness and ability to generate broadly-shared prosperity at home.
At the same time, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act[2](WIOA), which supersedes the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA), funds training that leads to successful outcomes although it may not always result in a credential. For example, previously under WIA adult programs, on-the-job training does not result in a credential, yet such training can result in the acquisition of valuable occupational skills. Although training that leads to credentials is an important Employment and Training Administration (ETA) strategy, the optimal level of credential attainment is not 100% for all WIA, and now WIOA, authorized programs.
ETA is working to explore the use of real-time labor market information to identify credentials in-demand by businesses and will pursue approaches to engage with industry to identify high-quality and portable credentials within key sectors as well as encouraging similar efforts at the state and local levels as part of sector strategy and economic development efforts.
[1]The Employment Situation – October 2015. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf)
[2] The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) took effect on July 1, 2015. The passage of WIOA provides new authorizing legislation for programs that had been authorized under WIA.
Agency Priority Goal:
Statement:
By September 30, 2015, increase to 75 percent of participants served by Disabled Veterans' Outreach specialists who receive intensive services.
Description:
As large numbers of service members and veterans return to the civilian labor force, they are met by an improving but still-challenging labor market. Veterans, service members, and their families still face significant barriers to entering and maintaining meaningful employment. This is especially true for veterans with significant barriers to employment, including those with a service-connected disability, the educationally or economically disadvantaged, and veterans ages 18-24, who experience historically high unemployment.
Additionally, the last several decades have seen significant shifts in the American economy and workplace. Globalization, outsourcing, the shift from manufacturing to service sector jobs, the rise of technology, the decline in unionization, and the changing ethnic and gender make-up of the population, have changed the physical, social, and cultural landscape of the workforce. Today’s employers increasingly rely on highly-skilled workers with post-secondary degrees, state licensure, or other credentials. Veterans’ transferable skills (gained in past jobs and in the service) can help meet the needs of employers in the 21st century.
