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…

In a few years, the United States is going to have the largest number of teenagers it has ever had; at the same time, crime among teenagers is rising, and the recreational and learning activities and jobs that teenagers need for positive development are becoming scarcer in inner city and rural areas. Efforts in youth programs during the past 25…

In times of economic recession, dollars for job training and job placement programs grow scarcer, and those that are available tend to go to middle-class workers who are displaced or temporarily unemployed. The structurally unemployed--primarily the poor, the less educated, and minority youth--find it harder to compete for the needed training, and…

The federal government needs to provide employment and training assistance to help dislocated workers to become reemployed. Worker mobility assistance should not be focused upon as a major thrust of reemployment programs, since American workers are remarkably resistant to pressures to move to more promising labor markets. Efficient and effective…

The Guaranteed Job Opportunity Act would make major changes in federal policy on the unemployed. The bill would allow hard core unemployed persons to work on government projects until they find a job in the private sector. The participants would work four days per week for minimum wages or 10% more than welfare or 10% more than unemployment…

The General Accounting Office (GAO) interviewed national and regional Job Corps officials and conducted site visits to 14 Job Corps outreach, admissions, and placement contractors for two purposes: to determine whether the Department of Labor's (DOL's) policy guidance on Job Corps eligibility was consistent with legislation and regulations and to…

This case study describes the vocational education system and job training programs, especially those funded through the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act, in an unnamed metropolitan area of California. The data were collected as part of another larger national study of state and local response to the Perkins Act. Information was collected…

The Secondary Transition Intervention Effectiveness Institute studies issues related to secondary education and transitional services for individuals with special needs. This third annual report offers an overview of secondary transitional services in the United States by Jane Dowling. Papers describing preliminary findings of the Institute's…

This publication, one of a series designed to help policymakers and TANF [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] agency personnel, offers a baseline for understanding the challenge of serving persons who are being forced off welfare roles but who are hard to place in employment. The following topics are covered: (1) policy issues (who should be…

This publication, one of a series designed to help policymakers and TANF [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] agency personnel, offers an overview of programs providing publicly funded paid jobs in the public or nonprofit sector to TANF recipients, as well as of work experience programs in which recipients receive welfare payment in return…

For 30 years, the following programming strategies have become the backbone of public policy regarding youth employment: work experience, labor market preparation, job placement, on-the-job training, and occupational training. Three sources were used to analyze the effects of these core employment strategies on youth: a 1985 comprehensive study of…

This report surveys the vocational education system, work experience programs, and job training programs for youths in Chicago. The report is organized in five sections. It begins with a brief review of the socioeconomic context that affects youth employment in the city of Chicago. Section 2 examines vocational training in the Chicago public…

This report presents planning, implementation, and first-year operational phases of Youth Employment and Demonstration Projects Act (YEDPA) programs by prime sponsors in the Southwest. The prime sponsors were the city of Albuquerque and the encompassing county of Bernalillo, New Mexico; the Coastal Bend Manpower Consortium Area in Texas…

The aim of the research review reported here was to draw together empirical findings that illuminate the factors affecting Work Incentive Program (WIN) results and contribute to discussion of future welfare, work-training, and employment policies. (WIN, authorized in 1967, has sought to put people on Aid to Dependent Children (AFDC) to work…

This report presents representative findings from the Youth Employment and Demonstration Project Act's (YEDPA) experiments and evaluations since 1977, focusing largely on the programs' impacts on participants. The report begins with a review of YEDPA-sponsored research on the nature, causes, and consequences of youth unemployment. Chapter 2 deals…