Sponsoring Agency: U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration
Project Officer: Richard Muller
Performance Period: February 2012 – June 2015
Project Summary:
The Unemployment Insurance (UI) Workforce Connectivity Project is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), Employment and Training Administration (ETA). In 2011, ETA awarded grants to five states to conduct demonstration projects that would develop strong connections for unemployment insurance claimants with employment services provided through the publicly funded workforce system, primarily the Employment Service (ES) and the One-Stop Career Centers established by the Workforce Investment Act (WIA). Two states received grants to pilot social media demonstration projects (Idaho, Minnesota); two states received grants to pilot three “transformational elements” identified by ETA, including integrated workforce customer registration, real time triage, and transferability of skills (Mississippi, Oregon); and one state received grants to pilot both the first three transformational elements and a social media demonstration project (New York).
As part of the UI Workforce Connectivity Project, Abt Associates is conducting an evaluation of the state grantees’ demonstration projects in partnership with Capital Research Corporation and George Washington University. The evaluation has three key components: (1) an implementation study to examine the operation of the demonstration projects, with the goal of describing and assessing the changes introduced in serving claimants, based primarily on a series of site visits to each grantee; (2) an outcome analysis to document changes in service receipt, employment, and earnings among those who participate in the demonstration projects using administrative data; and (3) a feasibility study to examine issues involved in developing a rigorous impact evaluation of this type of intervention. CRC is involved in all three elements of this study, including conduct of site visits to interview state and local workforce officials in several of the demonstration sites, conducting cross-site analyses, and drafting the final report.