Evidence Building Capacity in State Workforce Agencies a COVID-19 Pulse Survey

Thirty-nine states provided complete responses to the survey conducted by the researchers, designed as a follow-up to the national scan of then-current research and analysis capacity of SWAs conducted by the researchers in 2016. A few key points arise in comparing responses to the 2016 and 2020 surveys, related to SWAs key research questions, technical assistance and training needs, and staff capacity.

Examples of states’ most pressing questions for workforce agency research and evaluation from the 2016 survey spanned the following categories:

• State program impacts/effectiveness
• Program performance/outcomes
• Development of labor market data
• Customers and their barriers

In 2020, states coalesced around state and local real-time LMI, outcomes/impacts of reemployment efforts targeted on UI claimants, and WIOA training program impacts. This is not surprising considering the greater significance of tracking the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and providing benefits and services to UI claimants in 2020.

In 2020, when asked for which technical aspects of research they most need training, technical assistance, or other support, SWAs focused on five areas:

• Advanced data analysis/analytics.
• Program evaluation/evaluation design/research questions.
• Reporting and communicating research results.
• Data collection and management.

Those responses are consistent with the highest-ranked areas in 2016.

An addition in 2020 was to ask SWAs in which aspects of governance and data sharing they most need training, technical assistance, or other support. In response, SWAs focused on these five areas:

• Learning and generating ideas and products with other units/agencies in the state
• Cross-state data sharing
• Cross-unit or cross-agency data sharing
• Learning and generating ideas and products with other states
• Data governance and stewardship

In 2016, the top two responses from SWAs concerning their staffing capacity were fair (44%), followed by adequate (29%). In 2020, nearly half of state workforce agencies reported their current staff capacity for conducting or overseeing priority research efforts as fair (46%), followed by over one-third reporting their staff capacity as inadequate (36%). This shift may very well be due to the increasing demand for research and information with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

(This report is 13 pages long.)

Selected findings include:

• When asked about the top three most pressing policy and program information needs that research could help address, SWAs most frequently pointed to state and local real-time labor market information (79%), outcomes/impacts of reemployment efforts targeted on UI claimants (67%), and WIOA training program impacts (49%).
• Changing Information Needs, An overwhelming 87 % of SWAs reported that their information needs have changed since the onset of the pandemic and recession earlier in 2020.
• When asked for which technical aspects of research they most need training, technical assistance, or other support, SWAs focused on five areas, leading with advanced data analysis/analytics (79%) and program evaluation/ evaluation design/research questions (67%). For many states, reporting and communicating research results (49%) and data collection and management (33%) are also areas of need.
• When asked to describe current staff capacity (including not only staff levels, but also staff experience and skills) for conducting or overseeing priority research efforts, nearly half of SWAs reported their staff capacity as just fair (46%) and over one-third reported their staff capacity as inadequate (36%).

Recommendations:

SWAs highlighted additional needs in their comments, including the following:

• Would be beneficial for research to expand the information provided by employers in their quarterly UI wage filing to include occupation, number of hours worked, and employee demographic data.
• Need for ongoing/sustainable funding to support the work we are doing through the Workforce Data Quality Initiative and to fund an ongoing data scientist position.
• Need to exempt participants in pilot/evaluation projects from being included in state and local performance accountability.
• Need to ensure that the performance accountability and reporting systems are simplified, better aligned with customers’ needs, and provide more timely and meaningful data that can be used to manage the system.

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2021
• Author(s): Chocolaad, Y.; Sullivan, L.; Forland, C.; Wheeler, S.
• Funding Source: U.S. Department of Labor
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: Wesley Peterson
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies