Implementation and Early Training Outcomes of the High Growth Training Initiative

The High Growth Job Training Initiative (HGJTI) was a national grant program administered by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), Employment and Training Administration (ETA). Between 2001 and 2007, more than 160 grants were awarded to establish industry-focused job training and related projects designed to meet the industry’s workforce challenges. This report is the third and final in a series from the national evaluation of the HGJTI conducted by the Urban Institute, the Institute for Policy Studies at Johns Hopkins University, and Capital Research Corporation. This report documents the national initiative, describes the structure and implementation of projects by selected grantees, and provides nonexperimental analysis of the early impacts of job training in selected HGJTI-funded programs. The analysis relies on a review of grant applications and quarterly reports; visits to nine selected grantee sites; data collected from grantee training programs; quarterly earnings data from state unemployment insurance wage records; and administrative data from state and local public workforce system agencies. (p.III)" (Abstractor: Author)

Conclusions from the national initiative: 1) Grants were issued to applicants proposing to target industries identified by ETA as having high demand for skilled workers currently and in the future. Health care and advanced manufacturing were the two most common sectors on which grantees focused; 2) Capacity building was an important component of the grantees' efforts; and 3) Over the course of the national initiative, ETA established and improved grant-specific performance management systems and procedures. The implementation analysis described five key findings: 1) Occupational training that was focused on the skills needed in a specific industry was generally considered critical by employers and administrators in the various partnering organizations, but establishing such training was not easy and required careful attention to cultivating partnerships; 2) Hiring and retraining qualified instructors were a major concern in developing and implementing industry-focused training; 3) While it is important to consider untapped labor sources for high demand occupations, many of these workers needed skills training; 4) Changing the current workforce development system model to focus on particular industries could be extremely difficult when trying to engage employers, education and training providers, and other partners; 5) The HGJTI grants provided an opportunity to promote and expand awareness of industry skill training needs and expand the capacity of grantees in several ways. Lastly, the analysis of impact of HGJTI funded training highlighted variability within the sites. Descriptively, all five sites showed small to modest improvements in employment and/or earnings from the two years prior. However, more rigorous experimentation with industry-focused approaches may yield more clear data. (pp. 87-89). (Abstractor: Author and Website Staff).

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2010
• Author(s): Eyster, Lauren; Smith Nightengale, Demetra; Barnow, Burt; O'Brien, Carolyn; et al.
• Organizational Author(s): The Urban Institute; Johns Hopkins University; Capital Research Corporation
• Funding Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: Wesley Peterson
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies