Mathematica will host an interactive webinar on October 13, 2022 from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET which will explore and discuss three Evidence Snapshots created by the Pathways to Work Evidence Clearinghouse. The Snapshots cover employment coaching, financial incentives, and subsidized employment and transitional jobs.

The webinar will include an interactive discussion among panelists from Mathematica and the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, which will address the following questions:

• Which interventions featuring an employment coaching component improve the employment and earnings of people with low incomes?
• Which interventions with a focus on financial incentives are the most effective overall, and which outcomes do they improve?
• Which subsidized employment and transitional jobs interventions improve outcomes for participants?

There will also be a separate interactive breakout session to each of the three snapshots during the webinar where participants can learn more about the types of services in which they are most interested.

Between 2010 and 2021, the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program funded two rounds of grants (referred to as HPOG 1.0 and HPOG 2.0) for education, training, support services, and employment assistance to prepare Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients and other adults with low incomes for occupations in the healthcare field that pay well and are expected to either experience labor shortages or be in high demand. This report examines the career progress and wage outcomes of participants in HPOG 2.0. The report compares the value of completing multiple entry-level trainings or obtaining multiple entry-level credentials against completing one entry-level training or obtaining one entry-level credential. Information is included that can help future program operators consider whether the time and cost for participants to take multiple entry-level trainings or obtain multiple credentials will lead to improved employment opportunities.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Chief Evaluation Office, in partnership with the Department’s Employment and Training Administration, will host a webinar on October 13, 2022 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET to highlight key findings from the recently released Career Pathways Descriptive and Analytical Project. During the webinar, there will be a screening of four short videos from the Department’s Evidence Coffee Break series, where researchers will share actionable information for practitioners thinking about designing or improving career pathways programs, and hold a live question and answer session with the study team.

Topics covered in the session include:
• How well has the career pathways approach worked?
• Launchpad occupations and why they matter for career pathways programs
• Career advancement from mid-level occupations for women and people of color
• Evidence-based insights for career pathways and other employment and training programs

Early adulthood is a critical life stage for education, employment, relationship formation, and reproductive health, but young adults’ experiences in these areas are highly varied. Using averages to describe youths’ experiences may miss meaningful differences that could alter their developmental trajectories. Understanding these trajectories—and their implications for youth of varying races, ethnicities, and genders—can help researchers, practitioners, and policymakers support young people’s development and ensure greater well-being into their adulthoods. This brief summarizes findings from a new report which reveals different employment pathways taken by young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds through the use of trajectory analysis—a person-based approach that allows clustering people into meaningful patterns based on their employment earnings and the fringe benefits they receive.

UpSkill America — an initiative of the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program — and the Latinos and Society Program at the Aspen Institute, with support from Google.org, launched the Digital Skills and the Latino Workforce research project to better understand the challenges and opportunities that Latino workers and Latino business owners face to succeed in the digital economy. The Aspen Institute will host a webinar on September 22, 2022 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. ET during which participants will learn more about promising approaches to digital upskilling of Latino workers, students, and households implemented by organizations around the country.

The Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program provided education and occupational training to TANF recipients and other adults with low incomes. HPOG training is for healthcare occupations that pay well and may experience labor shortages or be in high demand. This report details common themes from interviews with working students of 14 HPOG 2.0 programs. It highlights common experiences and challenges they faced pursuing and completing their training, which include the competing demands of working to pay for household expenses and caring for family members. The report is part of a series of briefs describing lessons from HPOG 2.0 participants. The series aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of motivations for enrolling in a career pathways program; managing work, training, and life balance; and services that facilitate their success.

The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration hosted a webinar on July 21, 2022, which was a primer on the apprenticeship system and feature examples from the field in offering apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship experiences to youth and young adults. The webinar discussed the apprenticeship system, components of high-quality pre-apprenticeship programs, and how apprenticeships compare to other models of work-based learning. Presentations were made from groups on the ground who have implemented apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs for youth and young adults.

The statutory language authorizing HPOG provides that funded grants should be “designed to provide eligible individuals with the opportunity to obtain education and training for occupations in the health care field that pay well and are expected to either experience labor shortages or be in high demand.” This report provides empirical analysis focusing on the first of these HPOG goals: training for healthcare jobs that “pay well.” It explores the prevalence of two possible training patterns that might lead to such jobs: direct entry into training for occupations requiring more/longer preparation (referred to as “Above-Entry-Level Training”), or a sequence of trainings, in a scheme consistent with the career pathways framework (referred to as “Follow-On Training”). Both rounds of HPOG (HPOG 1.0 and HPOG 2.0) emphasized utilizing a career pathways framework.

This evidence snapshot summarizes what rigorous research tells us about 17 interventions that used subsidized employment or transitional jobs as their primary service and the interventions’ impacts on earnings, employment, the receipt of public benefits, and education and training. The data come from high- or moderate-quality studies that began between 2004 and 2015 and were reviewed by the Pathways to Work Evidence Clearinghouse. The snapshot can guide program administrators, policymakers, researchers, and the general public on how they can apply the evidence to their context and the questions that matter to them.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation brief is an overview of how HPOG 2.0 programs adapted during the COVID-19 pandemic and continued to provide services to participants. It examines changes programs adopted during the first 10 months of the COVID-19 pandemic (approximately March—December 2020). Local HPOG 2.0 staff described strategies that helped them continue operations despite unanticipated implementation hurdles. The brief also highlights promising practices that may be of interest to healthcare training providers and policymakers.