What Works in Workforce Development?

Funding for workforce development is spread across the federal government. A commonly cited Government Accountability Office study from 2019 identified 43 federal programs distributed across nine government agencies that support some form of employment and training services. Even this list underestimates the full extent of federal funding for workforce development.[1]

Despite the large number of programs, there is growing consistency across them in terms of the strategies they use to connect people to jobs, their performance metrics, and the data used to assess their impact. Indeed, a noteworthy trend over the last decade in workforce development has been the adoption of shared definitions and metrics across different federal programs, including those administered by different agencies.

While workforce development activities are scattered throughout the federal government, most of the funding falls into a handful of programs that are the sources of workforce development strategies used across many other federal programs. The list below is not exhaustive but includes the largest and most well-studied programs.

The Public Workforce System

Title I of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014 (WIOA) lays out the purpose and architecture of our public workforce development system, which includes a network of 2,400 American Job Centers that help job seekers and employers. WIOA Title I is a loose collection of targeted programs, each designed to address employment and training needs of specific populations: youth, recently unemployed individuals (“dislocated workers”), and adults struggling to get a foothold in the labor market. WIOA also includes eight national programs that provide even more targeted services to particular populations of workers and job seekers. The annual appropriation for Title I programs in 2023 was just over $4 billion.

While each of WIOA’s programs is distinct, they are subject to a common set of performance metrics including credential attainment, employment, and earnings. Federal funding flows to state workforce development boards via a formula that accounts for population size, unemployment rates, and other relevant factors. The state boards distribute funds via a formula to local workforce development boards, which, in turn, administer the job centers. The system served over six million individuals in 2022–2023.

In 2008, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) commissioned a large-scale experimental study of the public workforce system, called the Workforce Investment Act Adult and Dislocated Worker Programs Gold Standard Evaluation.[2] This 30-month study took place from 2011 to 2013. Over 34,000 job seekers at more than 200 American Job Centers were randomly assigned to three different sets of services: (1) core services, which consist of information on local labor markets, job openings, and training opportunities, primarily via websites and printed materials, for job seekers to use on their own; (2) core and intensive services, which include more hands-on, staff-assisted job search assistance and help accessing public benefits; and (3) core, intensive, and training services, including a voucher to help cover the cost of occupational skills training from an eligible training provider.

The evaluation aimed to determine which combination of services improved a participant’s employment and earnings outcomes. It found that providing intensive services increased the employment and earnings of individuals in the treatment group over the 30-month period, by $3,300 to $7,100 (7 to 20 percent). From a cost-benefit perspective, intensive services generated positive returns on investment for individuals and taxpayers.

The results for the group that received training services in addition to core and intensive services were less clear. In the executive summary of the evaluation’s findings, Mathematica states: “Though not conclusive, the evidence suggests that training funded by the Adult and Dislocated Worker programs does not have positive impacts in the 30 months after study enrollment.” The evaluation did not find a statistically significant difference in earnings between those individuals offered training services and those offered just intensive services.[3]

The finding that “intensive” or “staff-assisted” services are effective in helping people find work is consistent with research on the impact of reemployment services on unemployed individuals. All states require recipients of unemployment insurance to connect with their public workforce system to learn about reemployment opportunities. Reemployment services have been extensively studied, and multiple studies have found them effective for helping people become reemployed and shortening the time they need unemployment insurance.

The lack of a strong connection between training and earnings is also consistent with findings from other large-scale, randomized, controlled evaluations of similar programs and target populations, including the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program and the Health Professions Opportunity Grant (HPOG) program. The TAA evaluation found that recipients who enrolled in training were employed at similar rates to the control group in the last four quarters of the study and their earnings were negative relative to the comparison group that did not engage in training. The HPOG Three-Year Impacts Report found the program “had no detectable impacts on quarterly earnings in the 12–13th quarters after random assignment,” with both control and treatment groups earning approximately $5,000 on average per quarter, or just $20,000 per year.

While these studies converge in their findings around the positive impacts and returns to a wide range of career counseling and support services, impacts of training are still much disputed. More research is needed on the factors that make training a source of worker economic mobility and security.

A 2023 study from the Harvard Project on Workforce provides some promising new directions for research. The study uses publicly available administrative data from a variety of sources to track the occupations where public workforce participants are prepared and matches those against “opportunity occupations” identified by the Federal Reserve. Opportunity occupations are those “that typically require less than a bachelor’s degree while paying more than the national median wage adjusted for local cost of living.” The study finds there is a gap between opportunity occupations and the in-demand jobs for which the public workforce provides training vouchers. The in-demand jobs pay less than the opportunity occupations and provide fewer opportunities for career advancement. The Harvard researchers recommend more funding for the public workforce system’s career navigation and staff-assisted services.

Career and Technical Education

Our national career and technical education (CTE) system supports the development of academic, technical, and employability skills among high school and community college students. The Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act, also called Perkins V, is the main source of federal funding. Over 12 million students participated in CTE programs in 2022–2023 and annual appropriation has averaged around $1.2 billion since 2001, split between public high schools and community colleges.

While Perkins V is primarily an institution-based education program, there have been long-standing efforts to align and connect federal and state workforce development and CTE systems. WIOA and Perkins V share the goal of providing career counseling and occupational training opportunities to young people and adults, and their service populations often overlap, particularly at the postsecondary level. American Job Centers are sometimes located on community college campuses and Perkins V funding can be used to support sectoral partnerships, career pathways, and work-based learning.

The CTE field has a strong evaluation tradition, including its own congressionally mandated research center and decades of studies. In the 1980s, that research pointed to significant shortcomings in the quality of CTE programs and student outcomes, which largely failed to prepare students for successful transitions out of high school and into careers. The research also revealed systematic tracking of low-income students and students of color into CTE programs and away from college preparatory tracks.

The studies energized a reform movement that, in the first two decades of the twenty-first century, generated significant improvements in the design and delivery of CTE programs. CTE is increasingly popular among both secondary and postsecondary students. Indeed, a 2024 meta-analysis, What We Know About the Impact of Career and Technical Education: A Systematic Review of the Research, found that participation in high school CTE programs had positive impacts on students’ academic achievement, graduation rates, college-going, and employability. Many postsecondary CTE programs, particularly applied associate degrees in technical fields, lead to jobs that pay on par with or close to those requiring a bachelor’s degree. Studies of certificate programs, particularly short-term training, have generated more mixed results.

Registered Apprenticeship

Our national system of Registered Apprenticeship is high-performing. In 2012, Mathematica published results of an effectiveness assessment that found significant and long-lasting earnings gains—more than $200,000 over the course of their careers—for individuals who completed a Registered Apprenticeship program compared to workers in the same occupation who were trained through other means. According to the study, nine years after completing their Registered Apprenticeship program, participants made, on average, $5,830 more than their peers. No other workforce development system, program, or strategy comes close to generating these positive and sustained returns.

Apprenticeship programs integrate paid, on-the-job learning with related classroom instruction to prepare an individual for a specific occupation. The programs last anywhere from one to four years and, in contrast to other training approaches, trainees do not have to postpone earning opportunities while learning new skills. The system, which was created in 1937 as part of the New Deal, is administered by federal and state agencies that certify new programs and ensure their compliance with a set of statutory and regulatory requirements regarding program duration, content, delivery, and apprentice protections. Compared to our public workforce and CTE systems, the system is quite small, with just 638,510 active apprentices in 2023. It also prepares apprentices for a much narrower range of occupations than the other two systems, mostly in the construction trades.

Federal and state efforts to expand apprenticeship into new industries and communities have been underway for over a decade, fueled in part by evidence of its effectiveness as an employment and training model. Increased investments in apprenticeship have also included additional resources for research and evaluation. In 2015, DOL commissioned a comprehensive implementation and outcomes study of its $175 million American Apprenticeship Initiative (AAI) grant program. The AAI evaluation examined employment and earnings outcomes for apprentices across 45 distinct investments spread across the country and in a wide variety of industries. The researchers reported that apprentices who completed their programs increased their annual earnings by 49 percent. Women experienced higher wage growth than men (65 percent versus 43 percent), and the earnings of both groups grew substantially more than their peers who did not complete an apprenticeship (43 percent wage growth versus 16 percent).

While Registered Apprenticeship stands out for its impressive employment, earnings, and return on investment, its small size and narrow range of occupations limit its impact on the labor market. Expanding apprenticeship to include many more occupations and apprentices remains an urgent public policy challenge.

Job Corps

Job Corps is a federally funded program created in 1964 to help disadvantaged youth ages 16–24 complete high school, access occupational training and career counseling, and find employment. Job Corps is a residential program, and most services are delivered on-site.

There has been one large-scale evaluation of Job Corps that generated promising findings in 2001, followed by two follow-up studies, nine and 20 years later, that revealed more modest findings. The first was a randomized control study that tracked about 11,000 youth in over 100 Job Corps centers across the country. Youth who were offered Job Corps had significantly higher earnings and worked more hours and weeks than the control group. Those positive results held up through four years after random assignment and were similar for men and women.

The follow-up studies used tax data to determine employment and earnings levels in the control and treatment groups and showed that individuals who had enrolled in Job Corps as adults (ages 20–24) retained the initial positive program effects, but younger participants (ages 16–19) did not. Understanding the failure to generate positive outcomes for these younger Job Corps participants is an important area for future research.

YouthBuild

YouthBuild is also a WIOA national program administered by DOL that provides job training and educational services for opportunity youth ages 16–24 who lack a high school diploma. The program’s focus is primarily on training young people in the building trades and it serves around 5,000 people each year.

DOL commissioned a randomized controlled study of YouthBuild that ran from 2011 to 2013 and measured individual education, employment, and earnings outcomes four years later. The study found that YouthBuild participants were more likely to earn a secondary diploma and some postsecondary credits than the control group. Surveys of participants indicated a small increase in earnings for program participants, but administrative wage data found no increase.

Senior Community Service Employment Program

The Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP) is the sole federal workforce training program for adults aged 55 and older. Part of the Older Americans Act, SCSEP provides subsidized employment and on-the-job training to people with incomes at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty level. In 2013, Social Policy Research Associates and Mathematica published an outcomes evaluation that showed that 46 percent of program participants transitioned into unsubsidized employment, but there were significant social and emotional benefits for participants. In 2021, DOL commissioned the Older Workers Study, which will be completed in 2026 and will include an examination of SCSEP.

Reentry Employment Opportunities

Similar to YouthBuild, the Reentry Employment Opportunities program (REO) is a WIOA national program targeting a specific population of job seekers, in this case, individuals transitioning out of incarceration. There are a number of rigorous research studies examining various reentry programs, a number of which show positive impacts on employment, often beginning with a subsidized employment opportunity, and positive impacts on earnings. Few programs have documented a significant effect on recidivism. A DOL-commissioned evaluation of the REO program is underway.

Refugee Support Service and Targeted Assistance Grant Programs

The Refugee Support Service (RSS) and Targeted Assistance Grants (TAG) are formula programs to help states and cities integrate recently arrived refugees into the local community. The programs can generate strong employment and earnings outcomes for their refugee clients. A 2008 study focused on refugees between the ages of 18 and 55 who received RSS or TAG services. The Evaluation of the Refugee Social Service (RSS) and Targeted Assistance Formula Grant (TAG) Programs: Synthesis of Findings from Three Sites found that most participants moved rapidly into unsubsidized employment and their wages increased over time.

Our federal workforce development programs deploy a range of strategies designed to prepare people for jobs and careers. These strategies are the subject of a growing number of research studies and impact evaluations. Below are summaries of the primary strategies and relevant research.

Sector Strategies

Sector strategies, also called sectoral partnerships, are widely considered the most effective workforce development strategy. They organize multiple employers in an industry sector around shared sets of talent development needs and then form partnerships with local education providers and workforce and economic development agencies to meet those needs. The strategy requires coordination among various public and private entities, a role usually filled by a workforce development board or other intermediary. The strategy requires employers to share information about their workforce development needs, skill standards, internal career ladders, and so on. This information sharing allows local intermediaries to develop and expand high-quality workforce development solutions.

Over the last two decades, there have been quite a few evaluations of sectoral partnerships, some using experimental or quasi-experimental designs. The 2010 evaluation firm Public/Private Ventures published Tuning In to Local Labor Markets: Findings from the Sectoral Employment Impact Study, a randomized, controlled study of partnerships led by three nonprofit workforce intermediaries, the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership, Jewish Vocational Services–Boston, and Per Scholas in New York City. The researchers found the treatment group had significantly higher employment rates (18.3 percent) and earnings ($4,500/year) than the control group and were more consistently employed over the 24-month period of evaluation.

Project Quest, a health care-focused sectoral partnership located in San Antonio, Texas, has also been the subject of a rigorous, randomized, controlled evaluation, including two follow-up studies. In 2017, an impact study by Economic Mobility Corporation reported that “six years after study enrollment, the impact on participants’ annual earnings had continued to grow from an average of $2,286 in the third year after random assignment to $5,080 in the sixth year. Additionally, QUEST participants worked more consistently and in higher-wage jobs than control group members; were more likely than control group members to earn vocational certificates or licenses, particularly in the health care field; and reported fewer financial difficulties than control group members at the end of the follow-up.” A nine-year follow-up study published in 2019 found continued positive employment and earnings outcomes, as did a 14-year follow-up study published in 2024. Project Quest has generated significant and sustained employment and earnings gains for the people it serves.

Despite impressive results from these innovative workforce intermediaries, subsequent evaluations have found more mixed results. For example, the WorkAdvance Evaluation, a randomized control evaluation of four sectoral partnerships, found no statistically significant effects on average earnings at three of the sites. The 2022 report by MDRC on employment and earnings outcomes after seven years says: “Overall, the WorkAdvance results show that sector programs can increase earnings in the longer term and can lead to advancement gains over time, but not all sector programs will lead to increases in employment and earnings.” Additional research on replicating and expanding successful programs is needed.

Career Pathways

The term career pathways refers to strategies designed to help young people and adults acquire skills and credentials to start and advance within a career. Sector strategies and career pathways are closely related, with the latter placing more emphasis on the alignment and coordination of services provided to job seekers and students and the former more focused on organizing multiple employers in a given industry. The two strategies can be used together.

The approach aims to build a clear and seamless experience for job seekers as they access various public and private benefits, support services, and occupational training opportunities. Defined in law in the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014, advocates sought to simplify the often complex and fragmented nature of the federal systems designed to help people access employment and training services.

As with sector strategies, a few research studies were influential in shaping the push for career pathways, but they have also been difficult to replicate. Washington State’s I-BEST (Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training) program provided an early example of how to combine occupational training and postsecondary credits into an adult education program so that students could transition seamlessly from learning basic skills to earning a postsecondary credential. Early evaluations of I-BEST suggested the strategy was effective for increasing postsecondary attainment and employment rates. Subsequent rigorous evaluations have failed to find statistically significant impacts on postsecondary completion, employment, or earnings, but the model continues to attract the attention of researchers. The Accelerating Opportunity Evaluation, a quasi-experimental evaluation of integrated education and training models across six states, found positive impacts on employment and earnings for only a few subgroups, but not the majority of participants.

The Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) developed by the City University of New York (CUNY) was another early and well-studied example of how to prevent students from getting stuck in developmental education courses and never finishing their degrees. ASAP provides students with up to three years of financial, academic, and support services, including tuition waivers, counseling, and tutoring. An experimental evaluation that began in 2009 showed that ASAP nearly doubled graduation rates three years after students entered the study. Those early studies have been replicated and found similar results. An MDRC study of an ASAP demonstration project in Ohio community colleges found significant earnings gains for program graduates compared to the control group, in addition to higher rates of degree attainment.

Other large-scale evaluations of career pathway approaches have found mixed results. The Department of Health and Human Services funded the Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE), a randomized controlled trial (RCT) evaluation of nine career pathway programs across the country. A follow-up report published by Abt Associates in 2022 found that, three years out, “most programs had increased educational progress, usually measured as credential receipt, mostly for short-term credentials such as Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) certificates, but found no detectable impacts on quarterly earnings or employment.” The six-year cross-site impact report again revealed only one career pathways program, Year Up United, that generated significant positive earnings outcomes for participants compared to the control group.

The Health Professions Opportunity Grant program aimed to help TANF-eligible adults access and complete postsecondary health care training programs, using a variety of career pathway approaches. It also included an RCT evaluation that assigned participants to the treatment group that could access HPOG (i.e., career pathway) services or to the control group that could not. The study found that “the treatment group did not have higher average quarterly earnings or higher employment rates than the control group three years after program enrollment.”

Finally, a meta-analysis of 46 career pathway programs published by Abt Associates and DOL in 2021 found that the programs increased credential attainment among participants and employment in the industries for which people were trained, but had no measurable impact on long-term earnings compared to control groups.

Work-Based Learning

Integrating learning and working is a well-established, evidence-based practice that is used across all workforce development systems. While our Registered Apprenticeship system is the gold standard, there are other ways in which work and learning can be integrated that benefit both workers and employers. Indeed, there is a large body of literature, both in the United States and abroad, that indicates that when employers invest in training their workforce, both reap substantial benefits. There is also evidence that subsidized on-the-job (OJT) training, including the contracts that local workforce boards can enter into with employers, generates positive outcomes for both.

For younger working learners (high school age), the opportunity to build relationship skills, social capital, and postsecondary credits are often core goals, along with employment. For older working learners, retention and advancement are the primary goals. Below are three different rigorously examined work-based learning strategies.

Year Up United

Year Up United is a privately funded training program that provides young adults without four-year college degrees with intensive training and offers internship tracks in desktop/network support, quality assurance, project management, advanced system administration, and cybersecurity at corporate partner locations. An RCT evaluation of Year Up United by Abt Associates found that the program significantly increased participant earnings compared to the control group (by an average of about $2,000 per quarter) and also showed reductions in public benefit use and financial hardship among participants. Follow-up studies, five and seven years later, have found that the earnings premium persists for program participants. The positive earnings impact for Year Up United participants is notably stronger than for other youth-serving and/or career pathways programs. Evaluators attribute the success to a careful participant selection process, strong support services, well-targeted training, and a strong relationship with employers.

Youth Apprenticeship and Pre-Apprenticeship

Unlike apprenticeship systems in Germany, Switzerland, and other European countries, our apprenticeship system is not designed to serve high school-age youth. The average age of American apprentices is around 27, and, with few exceptions, there is little connection between the Registered Apprenticeship system and high schools. But there are a growing number of states, school districts, and nonprofit organizations that are building apprenticeship programs, some Registered, for high school-age youth. The Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship includes a national network of over 80 states and communities that are in some stage of building youth apprenticeship opportunities.

None of these efforts has yet been subject to an experimental evaluation, but the research base is growing. The Urban Institute published Youth Apprenticeship in the United States: Apprenticeship Evidence-Building Portfolio, which includes a literature review and scan of program-building efforts around the country. It also published an implementation evaluation of DOL’s Youth Apprenticeship Readiness Grant program, which funded 14 sites to develop youth-serving Registered Apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs. The Harvard Business School completed a study of CareerWise Colorado’s youth apprenticeship programs. Using program data provided by CareerWise, researchers found that nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of CareerWise youth apprentices successfully completed the program and transitioned into postsecondary education, employment, or both. In short, as efforts to increase youth apprenticeship opportunities continue, there will be opportunities for deeper and more rigorous research on its impact. In late 2024, a group of philanthropic partners behind the Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship selected Mathematica and Jobs for the Future (JFF) to lead a process implementation and outcomes study of several leading youth apprenticeship programs across the United States. The multi-year study will conclude in 2028.

Transitional Jobs and Subsidized Employment

There have been rigorous evaluations of subsidized employment programs for both adults and youth. A consistent finding across multiple studies is that positive impacts on employment and earnings tend to be strongest during and just after the intervention but fade over time. The Enhanced Transitional Jobs Demonstration, a large-scale, randomized, controlled trial led by MDRC that tested seven transitional jobs programs for people recently released from prison or low-income parents who had fallen behind in child support payments, found that 30 months after completion of the program, participants made $700 more per year than those in the control group and were slightly more likely to be employed. The Subsidized and Transitional Employment Demonstration evaluation, also a large-scale, randomized, controlled trial of multiple programs but over a longer time period, found similar, mixed impacts on employment and earnings, with improvements strongest in the short term.

Understanding which programs and strategies are successful at connecting job seekers to family-sustaining jobs and employers to the skilled workers they need is critical to our ability to build an inclusive and globally competitive economy. While additional research is needed, studies show three clear takeaways: (1) workforce development programs do a better job connecting people to in-demand jobs than to jobs that pay family-sustaining wages, (2) Registered Apprenticeship and other structured programs with social supports are effective in connecting people to well-paying jobs, and (3) strategies are needed to raise the quality of jobs for workers without a college degree and expand pathways into those jobs.

[1] The Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, and Transportation also administer workforce development funding, including the majority of workforce development funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPS and Science Act.

[2] The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA) is the predecessor of WIOA, but not substantially different, making this evaluation well suited for understanding the current system.

[3] An important caveat is that, while the comparison groups were not offered WIOA-funded training, around 20 percent did still participate in training, financing it themselves or with other types of financial aid. However, even this difference disappeared by the beginning of the second year after random assignment, leading researchers to conclude that it did not likely have a significant impact on the overall finding that training did not, on its own, generate statistically significant increases in earnings for the treatment group.

This brief was made possible through the generous support of Arnold Ventures.