The Office of Workforce Development (OWD) in New Orleans, Louisiana, with a grant from the U.S. Department of Labor, implemented Career Pathways, an innovative program designed to increase the local talent pool and help lower-skilled, unemployed, and underemployed individuals train for work in growing fields. RAND Corporation researchers evaluated…

Lower-skilled workers in the United States face a shrinking pool of employment opportunities. To combat this, the city of New Orleans' Office of Workforce Development (OWD) developed a job training program with a grant, awarded in 2014, from the U.S. Department of Labor Workforce Innovation Fund. The program, Career Pathways, was designed to help…

The primary focus of this study was to explore the characteristics of marginally employed (earnings less than $5,000 per year) ex-offenders. Findings from this study include the following: (1) The number of employed offenders varied from 47.7 percent of recently released offenders in 2006 to 49.8 percent of recently released offenders in 2009; (2)…

The Great Recession officially ended in June 2009. However, the labor market has made agonizingly slow progress toward a full recovery, and the slack that remains continues to be devastating for workers of all ages. The weak labor market has been, and continues to be, very tough on young workers. Though the labor market is headed in the right…

Implications from a literature review on the employment status and income of deaf people include the following: (1) serious underemployment of the deaf, (2) uncertainty about the effects of compensatory legislation on education and employment problems, and (3) significant effects of deafness on income and lifetime earning power. (SK)

An analysis based on U.S. census data of labor market opportunities for young, inexperienced college graduates (out of school less than five years) over the last three decades and projected into the next reveals significant trends. These opportunities are measured by types of jobs held and relative earnings. Comparisons of government figures on…

A survey of 13,582 employees of 261 employers was conducted in Iowa to determine if women are underemployed (i.e., not employed in positions or at pay levels commensurate with their education, previous work experience and aspirations) and underutilized (i.e., not employed in certain types and levels of positions to the same extent as their…

The benefits of sectoral workforce development programs to the working poor were examined in a 3-year longitudinal study of participants in six sectoral employment training programs across the United States. The programs, which were all designed to serve low-income clients, provided training in a diverse set of industries, including the following:…