When the COVID-19 pandemic plunged the economy back into recession in early 2020, it laid bare a fragile and profoundly inequitable labor market. The economic expansion that reigned from 2009 through 2019 brought historically low unemployment and inflation but failed to reduce income inequality or arrest the decline in the number of high-quality,…

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently projected record-breaking growth in 2021, but it is premature to celebrate this rosy macroeconomic picture. In the same document, the CBO also made an alarming prediction: The U.S. labor market will not fully recover until 2024. Recent U.S. jobs reports reveal the depth of the pandemic-created…

It is hard to imagine a more critical time for helping the low-skilled and disenfranchised youth in our communities to become gainfully employed. Even as the nation suffers through its worst economic downturn in decades, America's business and industry leaders are predicting an unprecedented shortage of educated and skilled workers to meet the…

This report sets out to comprehensively analyse major reviews and evaluations of programs relevant to Indigenous labour market outcomes, including national mainstream and Indigenous-specific policies. The main evaluations covered relate to the Aboriginal Employment Development Policy, the Indigenous Employment Policy, the Community Development…

This paper examines why the Airway Science Program, initiated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to develop college-educated and technically prepared personnel for FAA employment (primarily for air traffic control), has failed to meet its work force goals. Research data were gathered from interviews with Airway Science Program…

This report contains a compendium of the opinions and concerns of a task force that researched current conditions that affect court-involved youth and identifies the most promising strategies for connecting court-involved youth to the labor market. The report includes three introductory chapters, four chapters related to task force discussion…

The employability of secondary-level youth is considered by a youth employment company official in testimony to the National Commission on Excellence in Education. Attention is directed to ways in which young people, and particularly the economically disadvantaged, can acquire the necessary reading, writing, and math skills for on-the-job success.…

This guide focuses on these two key challenges that states and localities have identified as important for the long-term success of welfare reform and work force development efforts: helping low-income parents sustain employment (steady work) and advance in the work force (better jobs). The guide consists of five parts and is structured to…

This paper assesses the youth employment situation from a policymaking perspective. The first of three main sections provides a largely statistical overview of the current youth labor market. The 1980s recession is said to be a depression for youth, especially minority youth. Increases in teenage unemployment are documented, and asserted to be the…

These 19 papers from the second annual Policy Forum on Employability Development explore the responsiveness of various educational and training institutions to changing labor market demands. The first three papers provide an overview of the forum. They summarize the proceedings and policy considerations and address how vocational education and…

This document is a workbook that describes how youth practitioners, Workforce Investment Act (WIA) entities, policymakers, funders, and others can use the Promising and Effective Practices Network (PEPNet) to improve the field of youth employment and youth development. The workbook begins with an introduction to PEPNet, which is a framework for…

Transforming the welfare system presents governors with unique opportunities, hard choices, and creative challenges. Change will require continued commitment to welfare, educational reform, and economic development. Governors can improve the status of private citizens and private businesses. The Family Support Act of 1988 signaled major changes in…

In the spring of 1985 a task force comprising private sector representatives was convened to formulate recommendations regarding the development of an overall policy framework for employment and training and related systems in Virginia. The task force was asked to focus their efforts on the following policy areas: training and retraining the adult…

This document examines employment and social policy in the European Union in 1999-2001. The document begins with an interview with Anna Diamantopoulou, the European Union's commissioner for employment and social affairs and the paper "Balancing Jobs, Cohesion, and Productivity" by Odile Quintin, the European Union's director-general for…

A study examined the experiences of some 1.4 million American defense industry workers, displaced in the wake of the Cold War, as a way of reviewing and evaluating national policies toward worker adjustment and re-employment as they have evolved in the 1990s. The study found that the federal government, through the Department of Labor,…