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Employment: Long-Term Employment |
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There is little reason to conclude that employment programs foster
employment. While studies of Career Academies show that participants were
more likely than youth in the control group to work during high school,
studies of two other programs show that participants were significantly
less likely to work in the first year after assignment to the program
(JS2, JC). These short-term findings are not surprising and do not
necessarily indicate failure: Youths may be trading employment hours for
time invested in their education.
This raises another question: Does random assignment to a job training program improve a youth's long-term chances of being employed? Surprisingly, evidence from three diverse programs indicates that the answer is no. Youths in JOBSTART, which targets high school dropouts, did not have significantly higher employment rates at the three- and four-year follow-ups. Nor did young people in Career Beginnings have significantly higher employment rates in the year after high school, compared to a control group. Authors of the Career Beginnings evaluation attribute this finding to a greater percentage of participants trading work for higher education. Finally, Summer Training and Education Program did not result in significantly higher employment rates after high school. Some evidence does suggest that employment programs increase
employment. Job Corps participants were slightly more likely than youth in
the control group to be employed at the 30-month follow-up (63 percent
compared to 59 percent).
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