Policymakers at the state and federal levels have expressed concern over the emerging "skills gap"--the mismatch between the job skills employers are looking for and the skills that applicants in the labor market possess. The skills gap is most acute for middle-skilled jobs; that is, jobs that require training beyond high school but less…

Postsecondary workforce development is one of the major innovations of the modern community college. In a workforce approach, curriculum is driven by the needs of local industry, course delivery systems are sufficiently flexible to meet the diverse needs of students and industry, and students experience a mixture of work-based and classroom…

As the U.S. economy slowly rebounds, the nation's community colleges are focused on putting Americans back to work. Across the country, training programs in emerging career fields, including nuclear, wind, and clean coal production, vie for the attention of job seekers in search of a more secure financial future. But these shiny new careers aren't…

Robert LaLonde of the University of Chicago and Daniel Sullivan of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago suggest that retraining through our nation's community colleges is a way to reduce the skills gaps of at least some of these displaced workers and increase their reemployment earnings. Although workers may still experience significant earnings…

This bibliography summarizes recent research on the structure and effectiveness of workforce development programs. While the term "workforce development" can mean many things, this document focuses on programs to help low-skill, low-wage and displaced workers increase their employment and earnings, as well as labor market trends that…

The author explains how one company managed a shutdown while avoiding difficult problems. He describes a five-action plan that focused on all the following areas: severance and benefits, communication, training and development, job opportunities, and retirement planning. This plan is then evaluated and recommendations to improve the plan are…

A project coordinated through Job Training Partnership Act programs and local educational organizations in Clermont and Warren Counties of Ohio attempted to identify persons in the clerical field who were unemployed or whose employment opportunities were limited by a lack of technological skills. A commercially developed assessment was used with…

The author examines the present educational provision for unemployed adults, in the light of its relevance to their needs, and draws attention to the Open University's (Great Britain) work in this field. The author also discusses the effects of unemployment and assumptions about unemployment. (CT)

The most striking general features of the Danish education system are these: a high degree of centralization, learner-centeredness, open access, precisely defined conditions of service for teachers, and virtually non-existent training for educational managers. Education is compulsory for children between the ages of 7 and 16 years. Optional…

The Labour Adjustment Initiative was developed in Ontario to provide the ever-increasing number of laid-off workers with remedial basic skills training in order to prepare them for other jobs or further training. The model developed by the Literacy Branch of the Ontario government emphasized a collaborative approach that drew together all of the…

This collection of 16 case studies is intended to illustrate how the public and private sectors have managed to collaborate in helping workers adapt to changing employment circumstances. The case studies are grouped into three categories. The first six case studies are examples of programs that have been developed to assist in training for new…

Northampton County Area Community College implemented a program of tuition waiver for unemployed adult residents of its sponsor area on a space-available basis in credit courses only. In addition to providing relief and a positive interventionary program to aid the unemployed, the project tested certain hypotheses concerning the nature of training…

"Look into the Future" is a program created by a Job Training Partnership Act project and 9to5, Working Women Education Fund, to address the training and retraining needs of office workers in light of the advances in computer and communications systems. This guide describes the model project and suggests steps other organizations can…

The Employer Specific Skills Training (ESST) Program strengthens New York State's economy by assisting employers and employees to become more productive and competitive through customized training and education. The program has three goals: (1) to foster cooperative ventures; (2) to use resources of local education agencies to respond to local…

This report, one in a series of three publications for vocational program developers and others to use in planning and developing a community-based response to worker dislocation, deals with programs for dislocated workers that have been developed and supported by private sector and local community efforts and resources. Reviewed in the first…