UPDATE: Sheila Maguire of P/PV wrote this piece for CNN.com, in which she gives more details on sectoral employment.
Over the past two decades, an innovative approach to workforce development known as “sectoral employment” has emerged, resulting in the creation of industry-specific training programs that prepare unemployed or under-skilled workers for skilled positions and connect them with employers seeking to fill such vacancies.
Here at EMSI, we’ve been lucky enough to work with a number of clients who have put this strategy into practice. Our data is used to get a detailed look at local labor markets in order to see the characteristics of local industries, as well as what occupations are in demand, and what knowledge and skills are important to local companies.
This kind of work deserves the attention of anyone who is interested in the future of reemployment. We’ve seen a number of workforce development agencies become highly successful in their workforce development efforts. It’s great to now have research — from Public/Private Ventures – that distills the common traits differing sectoral strategies share, and provides years of data to back up their conclusions.
Here’s our point-by-point breakdown of P/PV’s statistically driven assessment of the effectiveness of sectoral employment training:
Who did they study?
The study focused on “…mature programs that seemed to be well implemented, since it takes time for an organization to both understand employers’ needs and craft appropriate responses.” Those programs were:
- The Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership — “a non-profit public interest organization devoted to family-sustaining jobs in the greater Milwaukee area.”
- Jewish Vocational Service–Boston (JVS–Boston) – which “delivers a broad range of educational and vocational services to over 20,000 clients annually to help them and their families reach financial independence.”
- Per Scholas — “a non-profit social venture dedicated to using technology to improve the lives of people in low-income communities.”
Here is what the Public/Private Ventures wanted to find out:
- Do mature sector-focused programs result in significant labor market gains for low-income, disadvantaged workers and jobseekers?
- Do such programs raise the earnings of program participants and whether participants were more likely to find employment and work more consistently?
- Do program participants get higher-quality jobs?
- Were participants more likely to earn higher wages?
- Did participants find jobs with better access to benefits?
- Do specific groups of people, such as welfare recipients or young adults, benefit from participation?
- What programmatic, contextual and individual factors that contribute to these outcomes?
Here are the metrics it used in their statistical analysis:
- Total earnings
- The likelihood of finding employment
- Number of hours worked
- The likelihood of working a job that paid an hourly wage of at least $11 and at least $13
- The likelihood of working a job that offers benefits
Here is what it found:
It works. There’s a lot more to talk about here, and we will be providing more analysis over the coming weeks, but for now here are some of the key findings:
The study found that participants were more likely to:
- Find and keep work more consistently than control group members.
- Earned significantly more than control group members, with most of the earnings gains occurring in the second year.
- Program participants were significantly more likely to work in jobs with higher wages.
- Program participants were significantly more likely to work in jobs that offered benefits.
- For each subgroup analyzed, program participants had significant earnings gains as compared to their counterpart controls.
In addition participants earned about $4,000 more per year as compared to folks who were not enrolled in such programs.
Contact EMSI if you have questions on how we help workforce groups.
