Job Training That Gets Results: Ten Principles of Effective Employment Programs

Abstract

Presents operational and policy lessons for professionals who design employment policy and operate job training programs at national, state, and local levels. Describes how practitioners and policymakers have improved job training in the United States over the past twenty years and what challenges lie ahead. Sets out ten principles for effective employment programs: a strong private economy does far more to reduce unemployment than any government program; build on the market orientation of effective job training programs to build an effective job training system; a large part of the conventional wisdom on the working poor being in dead-end jobs is false; designing effective career ladders requires single- and multiemployer skills upgrading; sustaining effective career ladders means influencing the structure and craft of jobs; build on the success of welfare reform with targeted postemployment strategies; a new world of employment exists, with implications for workers with disabilities; the emerging "new technician" jobs provide an important niche training market; the best antipoverty efforts go beyond government programs; and the job training professional assumes a greater role in a world of globalization, competition, and outsourcing. Bernick served as the director of the California Employment Development Department until 2004 and is currently Research Fellow with the Milken Institute, Santa Monica. Index.