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Strategic Objective
Advance employment opportunities for U.S. workers in 21st century demand sectors and occupations using proven training models and through increased employer engagement and partnerships.
Strategic Objective
Overview
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).
Read Less...Progress Update
The Department of Labor, in consultation with the Office of Management and Budget, has highlighted this objective as a focus area for improvement.
The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) was signed into law on July 22, 2014. WIOA supersedes titles I and II of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA), and amends the Wagner-Peyser Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. WIOA is designed to help job seekers access employment, education, training, and support services to succeed in the labor market and to match employers with the skilled workers they need to compete in the global economy. The six required core programs under WIOA are Adult, Dislocated Worker, and Youth activities, Adult Education, Wagner-Peyser Employment Service, and Vocational Rehabilitation.
Employment and Training Administration and Veterans’ Employment and Training Services programs that support this objective include the Adult, Dislocated Worker, National Emergency Grants, Migrant and Seasonal Farmworker, Indian and Native American, Trade Adjustment Assistance, Community Service Employment for Older Americans, Jobs for Veterans State Grants (JVSG), and Homeless Veterans’ Reintegration Program (HVRP).
The Department’s funding for the above programs goes to a range of states, localities, and other entities, with varying employment and training delivery strategies designed to meet the needs of the target group being served. DOL provides leadership for those programs through technical assistance, policy guidance, and grants administration. Evaluations have indicated positive impact of the WIA Adult and Dislocated Worker programs on participants’ employment and earnings. With few exceptions, DOL employment and training program participants’ entered employment rate, employment retention rate, and average earnings improved over the past four years. One noteworthy achievement is an increase in the share of veterans who received intensive services from JVSG specialists – from 25 percent in FY 2011 to 76 percent in FY 2015.
The decentralized nature of the workforce system creates challenges in program implementation, as it is more difficult to ensure the uniform adoption of evidence-based and best practices and employer engagement. In addition, the Department has faced issues with the reliability of the performance data it collects under WIA regarding training related employment.
Another barrier to addressing this objective is limited training funds relative to the number of job seekers. As a result, only a small fraction of those served by these programs receive training (as opposed to less expensive core and intensive services). To address this, the FY 2017 President’s Budget funds the DOL WIOA formula grants at their full authorized levels (a $138 million increase). Another budget proposal will provide $2 billion over 5 years to fund Career Navigators and establish a WIOA Workforce Data Science and Innovation Fund to assist unemployed and underemployed Americans get into better jobs using best-in-class data and tools to inform their recommendations.
WIOA requires the development of common indicators of performance and a unified or combined State Plan – changes that led to unprecedented cross-agency collaboration aiming to improve performance on this strategic objective. However, reduced funding for Workforce Data Quality Initiative grants poses a challenge for supporting state efforts to develop and build integrated data infrastructure for case management and other purposes.
In order to identify and expand the use of proven models that engage employers, the Department has continued to pursue evaluation and research projects that have strong employer components. Conclusive information from such research will be widely disseminated as it becomes available. In addition, the Department has made a commitment to provide technical assistance to states as they conduct their own evaluations and research projects, as required under WIOA. Where evidence supports a particular approach, states and grantees are encouraged – and for some competitive grant programs, required – to adopt it. The Administration is also seeking to expand the use of models that have been shown to produce positive employment outcomes—such as apprenticeship and Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessments, for which the Budget provides additional resources.
[1] Heinrich, Carolyn J., Peter R Mueser, and Kenneth R. Troske (2009) Workforce Investment Act Non-Experimental Net Impact Evaluation. Columbia, MD: IMPAQ International, LLC (http://wdr.doleta.gov/research/keyword.cfm?fuseaction=dsp_puListingDetails&pub_id=2419&mp=y&start=41&sort=7)
[2] The DOL Office of the Inspector General (OIG) identifies as a top management and performance challenge for the Department "Helping Adults, Youth and Veterans Obtain the Education, Training and Support Services Needed to Succeed in the Labor Market" (http://www.dol.gov/sec_/media/reports/annual2015/2015annualreport.pdf). Additionally, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found ETA grantees' training-related employment data unreliable primarily because a significant portion of the data was missing (WIA: Strategies Needed to Improve Certain Training Outcome Data, (GAO-14-137).
