The General Accounting Office reviewed the Department of Labor's process for determining worker eligibility for the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program. TAA provides help in making the transition to new employment to workers certified by the Department of Labor as affected by imports. The program gives workers job counseling, occupational and remedial training, placement assistance, and support services, as well as job search and reallocation allowances and up to 52 weeks of extended unemployment benefits. The review focused on two areas: the Department of Labor's practices for investigating petitions and state efforts to assist workers in filing petitions. The Department of Labor's application of the TAA eligibility criteria also was investigated. The evaluation was conducted through a review of a sample of 150 randomly selected petitions affecting an estimated 16,641 workers from the 2,983 petitions filed during 1990 and 1991, and through a comparison of actual and expected numbers of workers filing petitions in each state. The review identified several problems with the current TAA certification process that may result in workers not filing petitions or erroneous decisions to approve or deny TAA assistance to workers. The study estimated that 63 percent of the petitions had flawed investigations (about equal numbers of flaws in certified and denied petitions). Although specific improvements in the certification process can be made, given the Department of Labor's need to determine worker eligibility quickly, it is not clear how much improvement is realistic without changing the process. Suggestions were made for combining all dislocated worker programs into a single, comprehensive program or to modify the legislation defining whether imports have a significant impact on worker dislocation. (Contains two figures.) (KC)