Does Occupational Training by the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program Really Help Reemployment?: Success Measured as Matching

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Does Occupational Training by the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program Really Help Reemployment?: Success Measured as Matching

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2011-09

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As international trade continues to expand, more workers lose their jobs to low wage workers in developing countries. The Trade Adjustment Assistance Program is a dislocated worker program established to help their reemployment by providing occupational skills training and reemployment services. This paper measures the success of training provision as the match between the occupations of training and employment. Also, this paper investigates whether the match improves the post-participation outcomes of participants, such as reemployment rates, post-participation earnings, wage replacement rates, and retention rates, using the Trade Act Participant Report (TAPR), acquired through the Freedom of Information Act. This is the first academic paper that utilizes the TAPR dataset. The dataset shows a 37.82% of matching rate among trainees. While participants' educational attainment, age, and ethnicity largely determine the post-participation outcome measures, occupational skills training improves reemployment rates by 2 to 5 percentage points and retention rates by 2.7 percentage points. Matching between occupations of training and entered employment is highly beneficial to participants in achieving higher wage replacement. These results suggest that the focus of the TAA program on provision of training services can be more fruitful if emphasis is on choosing the right occupations for participants through career assessment and counseling so the trainees can find the occupation interesting and appropriate for their skill-level and can find a job using the skills acquired through the training.