The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), Employment and Training Administration (ETA), and Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) sponsor numerous research studies, evaluations, pilots, and demonstrations on a broad range of topics relevant to the agency’s mission. This annotated bibliography follows the Bos et al. (2017) “Employment Research in Brief: An Annotated Bibliography of ETA- and CEO-Sponsored Studies 2012–2016.” This annotated bibliography provides abstracts of employment research published on the ETA’s Research Publication Database or CEO’s research page from July 2016 through August 2020. The publications include primary research, evaluation, and demonstration reports, as well as policy recommendations and other types of analyses. These publications were not reviewed for quality or strength of design, and their inclusion in this bibliography does not imply any endorsement of their design, methods, or content by ETA, CEO, Mathematica Policy Research, or Safal Partners.

This annotated bibliography contains the citations and abstracts of 73 ETA- and CEO-sponsored publications. Each abstract provides a brief overview of the intervention studied, the type of research, data sources, analytical methods, and findings. Each abstract also contains a citation followed by a clickable hyperlink that takes the reader to the publication’s web page on the ETA online research database, where the full text is easily accessible, or links directly to the PDF document retrieved on CEO’s website. 

This bibliography is organized according to three broad program areas: Training and Employment Program studies, Unemployment Insurance (UI) studies, and Workforce Research studies. Within these three program areas, the abstracts are organized by more specific subtopics. Under Training and Employment Program studies, both population-specific studies and workforce development approaches studies are described. Reemployment services, alternative UI payment schemes, and other UI publications are considered under UI studies. Workforce Research studies include labor market studies and workforce research capacity and methods. Publications related to more than one program area are summarized in the section where they are most relevant. For publications that do not cover a specific program area or grant program, the annotated bibliography classifies them according to the most relevant topic area.