Ready to Work Partnership Grant Evaluation

• The Ready to Work Partnership Grant Evaluation: Final Report of the Impact Study of Four Employment Services Programs for the Long-Term Unemployed (Final Impact Report, December 2022)
• The Ready to Work Partnership Grant Evaluation: Technical Appendix for the Final Report of the Impact Study of Four Employment Services Programs for the Long-Term Unemployed (Technical Appendix, December 2022)
• Providing Employment Services to the Long-Term Unemployed: Insights on Program Impact from the Ready to Work Partnership Grant Evaluation (Summary Brief, December 2022)
• How Did Workers with a History of Long-Term Unemployment Fare during the COVID Recession? (Topic Brief, December 2022)
• Survey Non-Response Bias in the Evaluation of the Ready to Work Partnership Grant Program (Topic Brief, December 2022)
• The Ready to Work Partnership Grant Evaluation: Findings from the Interim Impact Study of Four Employment Services Programs for the Long-Term Unemployed (Interim Impact Study, May 2022)
  • Summary
• The Ready to Work Partnership Grant Evaluation: Technical Appendix for the Interim Impact Study of Four Employment Services Programs for the Long-Term Unemployed (Appendix: Interim Impact Study, May 2022)
• Providing Employment Services to the Long-Term Unemployed: Implementation and Sustainability of the Programs in the Ready to Work Partnership Grand Evaluation (Implementation Report, July 2021)
  • Summary
• Providing Employment Services to the Long-Term Unemployed: Insights on Implementation and Sustainability from the Ready to Work Partnership Grant Evaluation (Summary Brief, July 2021)
• Evaluation of the Ready to Work Partnership Grant Program: Findings from the Implementation Study of Four Training Programs for Long-Term Unemployed Workers (Interim Implementation Report, November 2017)

This study was managed by the Employment and Training Administration, Office of Policy Development and Research, Division of Research and Evaluation

• How were each of the four grantee programs designed? What training components do they include? Who are they serving? How were they implemented?
• What are the RTW programs' effects on participant outcomes of interest, including educational attainment, employment, earnings, and other short- and long-term outcomes for the long-term unemployed?

Final Impact Report

• The Ready to Work (RTW) program was designed to assist those experiencing long-term unemployment or underemployment after the Great Recession of 2007-2009. Participants were provided with employment related services—primarily occupational training, work-based training, employment readiness activities, and job search assistance services— which were expected to produce an increase in program participants’ educational attainment and ultimately to lead to increased employment and earnings.
• The RTW evaluation detected positive impacts on educational attainment and credential receipt (i.e. receiving certificates, credentials, licenses, or degrees) for three of the four grant programs included in the impact study.
• The RTW evaluation detected no sustained positive impact on earnings or employment for any of the four RTW grantee programs through approximately four years of follow-up. Even considering the four programs together, no impact is detected.
• Several potential factors could have contributed to these findings, including the improving economy over the four-year grant period (from 2014 to 2019). As more job-ready unemployed workers found jobs, grantees reported serving participants who faced greater barriers to employment than originally anticipated.
• The study also found that RTW control group members (individuals who were not offered RTW services) were able to access many employment-related services provided in the community. In designing future programs, DOL may wish to consider how the new program will lead to the receipt of considerably more employment related services than participants would receive otherwise.

Topic Brief: Long-Term Unemployed during the COVID Recession

• During the COVID-19 pandemic, a sample of previously long-term unemployed workers who were relatively older and educated experienced a dramatic fall in employment in 2020 similar to national trends.
• Though the national unemployment rate had almost returned to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2021, employment levels for this sample of workers did not recover during this time period.
• Changes in employment and earnings levels from 2019 to 2021 did not vary with race/ethnicity or gender. However, individuals with less than a bachelor’s degree had a substantially larger decrease in earnings during 2020 and substantially smaller increase in earnings during 2021 than did those with a bachelor’s degree or more.

Topic Brief: Survey Non-Response Bias

• The study found no clear evidence that non-response to the follow-up survey generated survey non-response bias in estimated impacts on earnings and employment, as measured for the full study sample in administrative data.

Topic Brief: Achieving Strong Survey Response Rates

• Factors that may have contributed to strong survey responses rates included collecting quality contact information during study enrollment, sending periodic study communications to study participants, and designing and implementing a robust data collection protocol led by an experienced survey team.
• Among the survey respondents, age correlated with a higher response rate with adults 18-24 having a 64% response rate compared to adults 55 and over having a rate of 82%. Highly educated respondents were similarly observed to have higher response rates than respondents with lower educational attainment.

Interim Impact Study

• The RTW programs provided a range of services (occupational training, work-based training, employment readiness courses, and job search assistance), produced moderate impacts on service receipt, and increased the number of hours of employment readiness courses the participants attended.
• The study did not find positive impacts on earnings, employment, or receipt of public benefits at 18 months. The evaluators explored four factors that may explain the pattern of interim impact findings:
  1. The 18-month follow-up period may have been too early to detect positive impacts; however, impacts may appear with the longer follow-up period included in the final report (36 months after random assignment).
  2. The impacts were too small to be detected by the study’s small sample sizes.
  3. The grantee programs did not increase service receipt enough to generate detectable impacts on earnings.
  4. RTW’s customized approach did not provide the appropriate content or intensity of services to improve employment outcomes for RTW participants, who were substantially older and better educated than the unemployed workers typically served by the workforce system. The evaluators also noted findings from earlier studies that revealed how older displaced workers face unique challenges to employment, including age discrimination, emotional distress due to unemployment, and outdated skills.

Implementation Report

• Grantees fully used the program’s flexibility. Grantees used the program flexibility to address local needs, with some emphasizing occupational training to upgrade skills, while others focused on developing employment readiness skills and/or connections to employers.
  • In the JVS and Worksystems programs, at least two-thirds of enrollments were focused on occupational training (largely in IT).
  • In contrast, RochesterWorks! provided employment readiness activities to nearly all of its enrollees, with only about one quarter attending occupational training.
  • AAWDC’s participants received both services.
• Grantees used funds to proactively pursue networking. To enhance chances for employment, all grantees prioritized developing industry connections. They explored work-based training options and encouraged employer visits and the posting of job opportunities. They also solicited input from employers on program design and invited them to job fairs.
• Work-based training was the least-common service provided. Grantees reported that work-based training (e.g., subsidized employment or unpaid work experience) remained a small percentage of services due to the large time investment needed to develop positions and build trust with employers.
• An improving economy changed the grant program dynamics. Grantees reported that as the economy improved, the more qualified enrollees found work. The remaining participants had lower skills and less experience and grantees had to modify services to meet this unexpected need. Changes included:
  • Increasing emphasis on occupational training.
  • Acknowledging that it was critical that customized assistance also provided mental health and confidence-building services. Using more aggressive recruitment strategies to continue to meet grant enrollment targets as participants left for jobs.
• Most participants were older with some higher education. More than 80 percent of program participants were unemployed at enrollment, with about onethird having been unemployed for a year or more. One-third to one-half had a bachelor’s degree, while most others had some college or a technical or associates degree. Because of the education and experience requirements, enrollees had an average age of 45, with about one-fifth older than age 55. About half of participants were receiving some type of public benefit.
• Grantees hoped to continue some program components. Although they could not afford to continue all grant-funded services, the grantees planned to seek new funding to continue motivation and confidence-building activities, cohort training (which prepares small groups to meet the needs of an employer), and building on relationships with employers and workforce development agencies initiated during the grant period.

Report

Klerman, J. A., J. L. Herr, and K. Martinson. (2022). Abt Associates. The Ready to Work Partnership Grant Evaluation: Final Report of the Impact Study of Four Employment Services Programs for the Long-Term Unemployed. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

Technical Appendix

Herr, J. L., Klerman, J. A., and Martinson, K. (2022). Abt Associates. The Ready to Work Partnership Grant Evaluation: Technical Appendix for the Final Report of the Impact Study of Four Employment Services Programs for the Long-Term Unemployed. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

Summary Brief

Herr, J. L., Klerman, J. A., Martinson, K., and Copson, E. (2022). Abt Associates. Providing Employment Services to the Long-Term Unemployed: Insights on Program Impact from the Ready to Work Partnership Grant Evaluation. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

Brief

Herr, J. L., Klerman, J. A., and Martinson, K. (2022). Abt Associates. How Did Workers with a History of Long-Term Unemployment Fare during the COVID Recession? Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

Brief

Herr, J. L. and Klerman, J. A. (2022). Abt Associates. Survey Non-Response Bias in the Evaluation of the Ready to Work Partnership Grant Program. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

One-Pager

Abt Associates. (2022). The Ready to Work Partnership Grant Evaluation. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

Interim Impact Study

Klerman, J. A., Herr, J. L., Martinson, K., Copson, E. (2022). Abt Associates. The Ready to Work Partnership Grant Evaluation: Findings from the Interim Impact Study of Four Employment Services Programs for the Long-Term Unemployed. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

Technical Appendix: Interim Impact Study

Klerman, J. A., Herr, J. L., Martinson, K., Copson, E. (2022). Abt Associates. The Ready to Work Partnership Grant Evaluation: Technical Appendix for the Interim Impact Study of Four Employment Services Programs for the Long-Term Unemployed. Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

Implementation Report

Copson, E., Martinson, K., Elkin, S., Sarfo, B., Kappil, T., Morrison, C., Sierks, C. (2021). Abt Associates. Providing Employment Services to the Long-Term Unemployed: Implementation and Sustainability of the Programs in the Ready to Work Partnership Grand Evaluation. Employment and Training Administration and Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

Implementation Report: Summary Brief

Copson, E., Martinson, K. (2021). Abt Associates. Providing Employment Services to the Long-Term Unemployed: Insights on Implementation and Sustainability from the Ready to Work Partnership Grant Evaluation. Employment and Training Administration and Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.

Interim Implementation Report

Martinson, K., Copson, E., Schneider, G., Elkin, S., Sarfo, B., Kappil, T., Ma, C., Morrison, C., Nakas, A. (2017). Abt Associates. Evaluation of the Ready to Work Partnership Grant Program: Findings from the Implementation Study of Four Training Programs for Long-Term Unemployed Workers. Employment and Training Administration and Chief Evaluation Office, U.S. Department of Labor.