The WIOA Research Portfolio Project: Summary of Stakeholder Input on Research Priorities

Through discussions and conversations with stakeholders, the WIOA Research Portfolio project aims to generate a wide range of short- and long-term research options for the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to consider as it seeks to strategically build rigorous evidence to support the continuous improvement of Employment and Training Administration (ETA) programs and services. This brief summarizes the input on research priorities gathered from stakeholders and experts by the WIOA Research Portfolio project team between November 2020 and April 2021. The timing of these discussions provides important context for the findings. Many discussions within this brief were held during a surge in cases of COVID-19 when social distancing measures were widespread. Other discussions were held after the vaccines were becoming widely available and restrictions were being lifted. The conversations also spanned two different presidential administrations. As a result, the policy and economic context changed rapidly during these discussions about workforce strategies and labor market trends.

A two-stage process was used to identify stakeholders. DOL identified seven distinct categories of priority stakeholders: state workforce system, local workforce system, business and industry, workforce advocacy, organized labor, post-secondary education, and Federal agencies.

Overall, from November 2020 to March 15, 2021, 53 organizations across all seven stakeholder categories, speaking with 105 people in total, discussed the following topics:

1. Work-based learning and apprenticeships.
2. Career pathways, advancement, and the role of credentials.
3. Integrated services and co-enrollment.
4. Employer services and engagement.
5. Career planning and navigation.
6. Remote services.
7. Job changes related to Covid-19.
8. Changes in the value of credentials.
9. Data infrastructure.
10. Remote Work.
11. Cross-cutting themes.

(This report is 7 pages long.)

The stakeholders’ top five priority topics related to workforce service strategies and the changing world of work. These included:

1. Work-based learning and apprenticeship
2. Career pathways, advancement, stackable credentials
3. Integrated service/co-enrollment
4. Employer service/employer engagement
5. Career planning/career navigation

The experts expressed interest in work-based learning and apprenticeship and emphasized the need for more information in five areas:

1. Motivating employers to participate in work-based learning
2. Increasing equity and inclusion
3. Work-based learning programs for youth, the supports needed to make such programs effective, and particular youth models such as pre-apprenticeship and summer employment
4. Generating and using data to understand outcomes and costs
5. Generating evidence on the impacts of different work-based learning and training approaches

Other findings included:

1. Stakeholders expressed a need for a better understanding of (1) whether and how job seekers and workers use career pathways and stackable credentials; (2) how much career pathway programs benefit workers and employers in the short and long term; and (3) which credentials employers value in career pathways.
2. Stakeholders highlighted the need to learn and disseminate best practices from states that have had the most success in integrating services to understand better the common barriers that others face.
3. Stakeholders discussed the need for career planning earlier in workers’ lives and how the workforce system could partner with K–12 education agencies to accomplish this.
4. Stakeholders discussed a need for the workforce system to move toward a framework in which employers are viewed as partners—rather than just customers—and a need to know how these partnerships could be developed to improve training, career advancement, and racial equity for workers.
5. Stakeholders stressed the importance to the workforce system of developing a clear understanding of the value of credentials in general, identifying high-quality credentials and helping workers pursue them, and understanding how the value of some credentials is evolving in a rapidly changing labor market.

The stakeholders discussed remote services; the pandemic’s effect on the labor market; the growth in alternate credentials; gaps in data infrastructure to capture outcomes; the transition to remote work; and cross-cutting themes of diversity, equity, and inclusion and research needs.

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2021
• Author(s): Yañez, A.; Deutsch, J.; Holcomb, P.; Dunham, K.
• Funding Source: U.S. Department of Labor
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: Justin Venneri
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies