Investing in Labor–Market Information (LMI): Insights from the Recovery Act LMI Grants Final Report

This report presents lessons that may provide useful information for future efforts and complements the Grantee Summary Report. The final report findings include challenges the grantees experienced due to the short grant length, implementation issues, as well as the evolving definition of green jobs. The report also explains how grantees leveraged the LMI grants to enhance organizational capacity, develop a better understanding of the green economy, and disseminate findings to users, ultimately moving LMI forward at state and national levels. The evaluation provides an in-depth description of the experiences of nine State labor-market information agency grantees: Alaska, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont. (Abstractor: Website Staff)

Grantees developed a wide variety of partnerships to realize grant goals including partnerships with other state agencies; educational institutions, such as universities and community colleges; researcher organizations; and nonprofit organizations….Through the LMI grant, many grantees strengthened existing partnerships or created new ones that partners expected to continue beyond the life of the grant….To develop definitions, grantees incorporated content from prior work they had completed, consulted preliminary work done by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the Occupational Information Network (O*NET)1, and customized their efforts to align with their particular project aims and state or regional economies. Local customization of green jobs definitions permitted grantees to include state- or region-specific industries, but limited comparability across states….Data collection purposes included (1) counting the number of green jobs or employers; (2) describing the characteristics of those jobs, including skill requirements; and (3) developing a better understanding of training needs to inform LMI efforts....To help job seekers understand the skills required for specific occupations and the greening of those occupations, grantees created informational brochures, developed occupational profiles, and produced videos….Timing constraints, a lack of planning regarding dissemination, decentralized partnerships, and changes in state administration all posed challenges to grantees efforts to disseminate their products. All nine of the study sites noted that the 18-month time frame made it difficult to fully realize the goals of the grant. For state labor market agencies, the LMI improvement grants presented an opportunity to expand their work, particularly in green occupations, but also brought with it significant challenges….Interviews with stakeholders of the nine grantees identified two key concerns regarding the sustainability of the LMI grants efforts. First, many of the infrastructure enhancements initiated under this grant have ongoing maintenance and subscription costs. Second, since partners and subcontractors completed much of the work, respondents expressed concern that the LMI shops may not have sufficient staff time or expertise to maintain and update grant products. (Abstractor: Website Staff)

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2012
• Author(s): Herz, Diane; Laird, Elizabeth; Angus, Megan; English, Brittany; Bernstein, Lauren
• Organizational Author(s): Mathematica Policy Research
• Funding Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by:
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies