Does Training Work for Displaced Workers? A Survey of Existing Evidence Does Training Work for Displaced Workers? A Survey of Existing Evidence
Duane E. Leigh
First Chapter | Table of Contents

120 pp. 1990
$ paper

For more than 25 years federal and state governments have funded retraining programs to ease the labor market adjustments required of workers directly or indirectly displaced from their jobs by mass layoffs or plant closings.

Leigh examines nine demonstration projects and operating programs to determine how well public retraining programs for displaced workers fulfill their roles. He addresses the following questions:
  • Do some types of training work better than others?
  • Do some groups of workers benefit more from training than others?
  • To the extent that training improves reemployment prospects, does it work by increasing post-training wage rates or by reducing the duration of unemployment?
  • Referring specifically to vocational training, how do we know what to train workers to do?