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,…

Enacted in 2014, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) was designed to increase collaboration among workforce systems at the federal, state, and local levels to integrate the array of programs and services available to job seekers and businesses through American Job Centers (AJCs). WIOA requires the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to…

The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented economic and policy challenges to the United States and other countries. Navigating out of the pandemic slowdown is another novel experience, which makes it more difficult to answer the question addressed each year in the "State of Working Pennsylvania": How is the Pennsylvania economy…

As children grow and develop, child care workers play a vital role in fostering learning and providing support in a safe and nurturing environment. High-quality child care jobs, where workers are valued and respected, benefit both workers and the children and families they serve. Unfortunately, the United States has historically undervalued the…

Texas's educator workforce has been characterized over the past few decades by high attrition rates contributing to persistent teacher shortages and increased hiring of underprepared and uncertified teachers. These conditions have motivated state investment in a multifaceted strategy to seed and support teacher residency programs. State guidance,…

Dr. Jacobson's analysis of "hard to serve" is well founded, especially from an academic and theoretical perspective, yet the author is left wanting. Is the solution to merely change the language, the terminology of the legislation, or the terminology used by policy makers as well as practitioners? Are these adults hard to serve or ill…

Since the introduction of workplace computers in the 1970s, policymakers have been racing to outpace the workforce demands of the information age. To address concerns, policymakers have promoted an expansion of skills training to help workers keep up in the changing economy. Because the way people learn, work, and live is transforming, so should…

This article explores the efficacy and cost effectiveness of New Labour's skills-based policies to help low paid workers adjust to the pressures generated by globalisation, of which the leading example was Train to Gain (T2G). It also analyses the more general issue of how, why and under what circumstances education, training and skills can help…

This report identifies effective strategies to tackle skills imbalances in Spain. It provides an assessment of practices and policies in the following areas: the collection and use of information on skill needs to foster a better alignment between skills acquisition and labour market needs; education and training policies targeting skills…

Although the challenges of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) have become apparent in middle-income countries, the making of these systems has not been systematically theorised and compared. This article discusses such processes in Brazil --a recognised emerging economy, and Chile-- one of the last economies to join the high…

This article introduces the Health in All Policies (HiAP) approach to the LIS community to propose a new way of thinking and teaching about how health is supported in public libraries. The topic of consumer health literacy has been a mainstay in the discourse of public librarianship, but we argue that this approach has not fully supported public…

This European Training Foundation (ETF) assessment provides an external, forward-looking analysis of Kosovo's human capital development issues and vocational education and training (VET) policy responses in a lifelong learning perspective. It identifies challenges related to education and training policy and practice that hinder the development…

Since it was signed into law, the Workforce Investment and Opportunity Act (WIOA) has been the subject of continuing scrutiny. One commonly shared concern is that the evaluation metrics of the Act (e.g., employment, salary, etc.) may incentivize programs to work with learners who will more readily meet expected outcomes (Pickard, 2016). Others…

Employment guidance theory and praxis promote long-term career development and access to decent work and sustainable jobs, yet the focus of public employment services in recent times has been influenced by policy matters of activation, conditionality and rapid job placement. While effective for some, it has been less effective for workers exposed…

This article examines the position of young women in the UK and France who are defined as not in education, employment or training (NEET) and economically inactive (EI). While the challenges facing the young unemployed are well documented, far less is known about economic inactivity and its propensity to impact to a much greater extent on the…