IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izapps/pp42.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Raising Job Quality and Worker Skills in the US: Creating More Effective Education and Workforce Development Systems in States

Author

Listed:
  • Holzer, Harry J.

    (Georgetown University)

Abstract

To improve the employment rates and earnings of Americans workers, we need to create more coherent and effective education and workforce development systems, focusing primarily (though not exclusively) on disadvantaged youth and adults, and with education and training more clearly targeted towards firms and sectors providing good-paying jobs. This paper proposes a new set of competitive grants from the federal government to states that would fund training partnerships between employers in key industries, education providers, workforce agencies and intermediaries at the state level, plus a range of other supports and services. The grants would especially reward the expansion of programs that appear successful when evaluated with randomized control trial techniques. The evidence suggests that these grants could generate benefits that are several times larger than their costs, and would therefore lead to higher earnings and lower unemployment rates among the disadvantaged.

Suggested Citation

  • Holzer, Harry J., 2012. "Raising Job Quality and Worker Skills in the US: Creating More Effective Education and Workforce Development Systems in States," IZA Policy Papers 42, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izapps:pp42
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/pp42.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James J. Heckman & Paul A. LaFontaine, 2010. "The American High School Graduation Rate: Trends and Levels," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(2), pages 244-262, May.
    2. Christopher J. O'Leary & Robert A. Straits & Stephen A. Wandner, 2004. "Public Job Training: Experience and Prospects," Book chapters authored by Upjohn Institute researchers, in: Christopher J. O'Leary & Robert A. Straits & Stephen A. Wandner (ed.), Job Training Policy in the United States, chapter 9, pages 289-309, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    3. Kevin Hollenbeck, 2008. "Is There a Role for Public Support of Incumbent Worker On-the-Job Training?," Upjohn Working Papers 08-138, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    4. Michael W. L. Elsby & Bart Hobijn & Aysegul Sahin, 2010. "The Labor Market in the Great Recession," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 41(1 (Spring), pages 1-69.
    5. Abowd, John M. & Kramarz, Francis, 1999. "The analysis of labor markets using matched employer-employee data," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 40, pages 2629-2710, Elsevier.
    6. Heinrich, Carolyn J. & Mueser, Peter R. & Troske, Kenneth & Jeon, Kyung-Seong & Kahvecioglu, Daver C., 2009. "New Estimates of Public Employment and Training Program Net Impacts: A Nonexperimental Evaluation of the Workforce Investment Act Program," IZA Discussion Papers 4569, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Christopher J. O'Leary & Robert A. Straits & Stephen A. Wandner (ed.), 2004. "Job Training Policy in the United States," Books from Upjohn Press, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, number jtp.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Harry Holzer, 2012. "Good workers for good jobs: improving education and workforce systems in the US," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-19, December.
    2. Holzer, Harry J., 2008. "Workforce Development as an Antipoverty Strategy: What Do We Know? What Should We Do?," IZA Discussion Papers 3776, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Lechner, Michael & Wunsch, Conny, 2013. "Sensitivity of matching-based program evaluations to the availability of control variables," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 111-121.
    4. Doyle, William R. & Skinner, Benjamin T., 2016. "Estimating the education-earnings equation using geographic variation," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 254-267.
    5. Singer, Christine & Toomet, Ott-Siim, 2013. "On government-subsidized training programs for older workers," IAB-Discussion Paper 201321, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    6. Fitzenberger, Bernd & Hübler, Olaf & Kraft, Kornelius, 2008. "Flexibilisierungspotenziale bei heterogenen Arbeitsmärkten : eine Einführung (Potentials for increasing flexibility in heterogeneous labour markets : an introduction)," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 41(2/3), pages 95-116.
    7. Henrekson, Magnus & Johansson, Dan, 2010. "Firm Growth, Institutions and Structural Transformation," Ratio Working Papers 150, The Ratio Institute.
    8. Auray, Stéphane & Eyquem, Aurélien & Gomme, Paul, 2019. "Debt hangover in the aftermath of the Great Recession," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 107-133.
    9. Rodrigo Mesa-Arango & Badri Narayanan & Satish V. Ukkusuri, 2019. "The Impact of International Crises on Maritime Transportation Based Global Value Chains," Networks and Spatial Economics, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 381-408, June.
    10. Judith K. Hellerstein & David Neumark, 2003. "Ethnicity, Language, and Workplace Segregation: Evidence from a New Matched Employer-Employee Data Set," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 71-72, pages 1-15.
    11. Dionissi Aliprantis, 2017. "Assessing the evidence on neighborhood effects from Moving to Opportunity," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 52(3), pages 925-954, May.
    12. Jinzhu Chen & Prakash Kannan & Prakash Loungani & Bharat Trehan, 2012. "New evidence on cyclical and structural sources of unemployment," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue March, pages 1-23.
    13. Benoit Dostie & Pierre Thomas Léger, 2014. "Firm-Sponsored Classroom Training: Is It Worth It for Older Workers?," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 40(4), pages 377-390, December.
    14. Duygan-Bump, Burcu & Levkov, Alexey & Montoriol-Garriga, Judit, 2015. "Financing constraints and unemployment: Evidence from the Great Recession," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 89-105.
    15. Jonathan Heathcote & Fabrizio Perri & Gianluca Violante, 2020. "The Rise of US Earnings Inequality: Does the Cycle Drive the Trend?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 37, pages 181-204, August.
    16. Ainara González de San Román & Yolanda F. Rebollo‐Sanz, 2018. "An Estimation Of Worker And Firm Effects With Censored Data," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(4), pages 459-482, October.
    17. Christophe J. Nordman & François-Charles Wolff, 2009. "Is There a Glass Ceiling in Morocco? Evidence from Matched Worker--Firm Data," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 18(4), pages 592-633, August.
    18. Heckman, James J. & Humphries, John Eric & Mader, Nicholas S., 2011. "The GED," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 9, pages 423-483, Elsevier.
      • James J. Heckman & John Eric Humphries & Nicholas S. Mader, 2010. "The GED," NBER Working Papers 16064, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
      • Heckman, James J. & Humphries, John Eric & Mader, Nicholas S., 2010. "The GED," IZA Discussion Papers 4975, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Borowczyk-Martins, Daniel & Lalé, Etienne, 2020. "The ins and outs of involuntary part-time employment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    20. Lex Borghans & Angela Lee Duckworth & James J. Heckman & Bas ter Weel, 2008. "The Economics and Psychology of Personality Traits," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(4).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    education; workforce development; jobs; skills; employment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
    • J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers
    • J08 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics Policies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izapps:pp42. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.