Does Federally Funded Job Training Work? Nonexperimental Estimates of WIA Training Impacts Using Longitudinal Data on Workers and Firms

Abstract

We study the effect of U.S. Workforce Investment Act (WIA) training in two states using matched employer–employee data. This allows us to estimate the impact of training on firm characteristics and to assess the value of firm characteristics measured prior to training as conditioning variables. We find moderate positive impacts of training on employment and earnings for adults, but not for dislocated workers. We find limited evidence of positive effects on firm characteristics for adults in one state, but clear evidence of effects on industry of employment for most groups. Firm characteristics add little value as conditioning variables.