The Department of Labor announced Tuesday the availability of about $5.7 million in grants for its Workforce Data Quality Initiative.
The agency plans to award approximately three grants to eligible State Workforce Agencies to provide for the development or enhancement of a state workforce database. The databases will include information on programs that provide training and employment services. The DOL also plans to award one grant with a maximum amount of $2.7 million for the integration of the state’s case management system, performance reporting, and fiscal reporting systems with the state’s database.
The Workforce Data Quality Initiative, which was launched in 2010, increases state-level understanding about how education and workforce development programs create increased efficiency.
The grant winners will conduct research aimed at determining the effectiveness of workforce and education programs, and to develop tools to better inform customers about the benefits of the publicly funded workforce system.
The grantees are expected to:
- Develop or improve state workforce databases with specific information.
- Enable workforce data to be matched with education data and track the data over time.
- Improve the quality of the data in the workforce data systems.
- Use data to provide information about program operations.
- Analyze the performance of education and employment training programs.
- Provide user-friendly information to consumers, in the form of scorecards or integrated digital platforms.
- Integrate performance, fiscal, and case management systems into the database.
