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This research was designed to develop and test a model of the Air Force manpower market. The study indicates that previous manpower supply studies failed to account for simultaneous determination of enlistments and retentions and misinterpreted regressions as supply equations. They are, instead, reduced form equations resulting from joint interaction of Air Force demand and enlistment supply activity. A stochastic process model is used to represent the Air Force manpower market. Variables determining manpower inventory levels, personnel turnover, and new enlistment flows are the mandated force level requirement, Air Force and civilian wages, the unemployment rate, and perceived civilian returns to Air Force-provided training. In the model it is possible to trace the impact of changes in the determining variables upon retention and enlistments. The empirical work supports the simultaneous demand and supply approach developed in the study. The results indicate that (1) changes in force level account for most enlistment rate changes during the all-volunteer force period, (2) higher Air Force wages have improved retention and reduce demand for new enlistments, (3) accessions show lower Air Force Qualifications Test scores, and (4) previous estimates of military manpower supply elasticities are biased downward from true elasticity. (Author/CSS)

As women increasingly entered the labor force throughout the late 20th century, the challenges of balancing work and family came to the forefront. We leverage pronounced changes in the availability of public schooling for young children--through duration expansions to the kindergarten day--to better understand mothers' and families' constraints. We first show that mothers of children in full-day kindergarten spend significantly more time at work, less time with their children, less time performing household duties, and less time commuting with their children in the middle of the day relative to mothers with half-day kindergarteners. Exploiting full-day kindergarten variation across place and time from 1992 through 2022, combined with the narrow age targeting of kindergarten, we document the impact of full-day kindergarten access on parental labor supply, family childcare costs, and children's subsequent academic outcomes. Our estimates of the maternal employment effects imply that full-day kindergarten expansions were responsible for as much as 24 percent of the growth in employment of mothers with kindergarten-aged children in this time frame.

In 2022, industry leaders voiced concerns to policymakers that Idaho was not producing enough engineering and computer science graduates from its public institutions to meet the needs of Idaho's economy. In response, the Idaho State Board of Education commissioned an analysis from Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) to explore the issue. Guided by an industry advisory group, the project team reviewed existing research, analyzed publicly available data as well as data from the state's longitudinal data system, modeled the projected supply of graduates, and conducted a range of employer engagement activities to answer two key questions: (1) Is the supply of engineering and computer science graduates from Idaho's public institutions adequate to meet current and projected industry demand?; and (2) If not, how can the state strategically address the gap between supply and demand?

There are hundreds of local labor markets fuel the American economy, and each one is driven by the needs of the local area's mix of industries and the skills of its workers. For each labor market to operate at its peak potential, these needs and skills must align. Achieving alignment requires local education and training providers to convey in-demand skills through the programs they offer; when providers fail at this task, skills gaps can manifest or grow. The result of failure is a great misalignment between credential supply and labor-market demand, specifically at the middle-skills level. On one side of this great misalignment is the middle-skills employment: jobs that require more than a high school diploma but less than a bachelor's degree. On the other side lies the vast array of middle-skills education and training providers, which include public community colleges, private nonprofit and for-profit two-year institutions, and private training institutions such as technical, clerical, and cosmetology schools, along with some four-year colleges that offer middle-skills credentials. These providers often explicitly design their programs to serve local workforce needs, including by collaborating directly with employers to create educational offerings that match the skills demands of the local labor market. This report focuses on middle-skills credentials--that is, postsecondary sub-baccalaureate certificates and associate's degrees. As of the 2020-2021 school year, providers of these credentials numbered almost 4,800 nationwide. These providers were spread unevenly across the 565 local labor markets described in this report, with some markets served by dozens of providers and others served by only one. The pressure on these middle-skills providers to meet community workforce needs continues to grow: the national economy is expected to create an average of 18.5 million job openings annually through 2031, and 5.8 million of these job openings each year (slightly more than 31 percent) will go to workers with an associate's degree, a certificate, or some college credit but no degree.

In this brief, authors Jess Carson and Sarah Boege describe changes in the early childhood education and care landscape of Grafton and Sullivan Counties in New Hampshire and Orange and Windsor Counties in Vermont, collectively known as the Upper Valley. The authors find that the Upper Valley lost 25 regulated child care providers serving children under age 5 between 2017 and 2021. However, with closure rates twice as high among family-based providers than among center-based providers and some new providers opening, the net number of slots has remained relatively stable (5,169 slots in 2021). The overall effect has been to consolidate available care into fewer, larger settings across the region. Three-quarters of Upper Valley providers open in 2017 were still open in 2021, reflecting greater stability than in non-Upper Valley portions of New Hampshire (71 percent) or Vermont (65 percent). However, the authors caution that early childhood educator workforce shortages limit the ability of child care providers to remain fully operational. They conclude by noting that workforce-supporting policy proposals differ in intensity across states, building on a stronger foundation of investments in Vermont than in New Hampshire. [This brief is part of the "Early Childhood in the Upper Valley Series."]

"The Improving the Pipeline for Tennessee's Workforce: Academic Supply for Occupational Demand Report" is the second joint report between the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC), Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development (TDLWD), Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development (TNECD), and Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE). This year's report maintains the Career Cluster structure, grouping occupations and aligned training programs in one place. Accompanying dashboards and data downloads are also available for readers who prefer to work with the data directly. This report includes a few new features, including a revised approach to measuring degree completers' employment and wages, as well as a simplification of report layout to improve readability and flow. Multiple state agencies facilitate this report's completion and there are many audiences for this report. Each year, efforts to refine and improve the report and associated outputs will continue to ensure the report is useful in education and workforce planning. This report: (1) Identifies in-demand occupations and aligned academic programs at the postsecondary and secondary levels as well as registered apprenticeships organized across 14 career clusters; (2) Includes in-demand occupations tables identifying the number of region(s) where the occupation is in-demand, entry level wages, indicators for jobs which are STEM fields and those which support TNECD's target industries, and the typical training level required for employment; (3) Contains aligned academic programs tables with information about degree production and completers, matriculation into Tennessee's job market, and first-year wages for those identified in Tennessee employment data. The calculation for employment outcomes changed in this year's report; (4) Spotlights select agency initiatives promoting education and workforce alignment in K12, higher education, and the workforce; and (5) Offers an overview of data, methods, and sources highlighting existing data use and areas for further exploration. [For the 2022 report, see ED624524.]

We examine the labor supply decisions of substitute teachers -- a large, on-demand market with broad shortages and inequitable supply. In 2018, Chicago Public Schools implemented a targeted bonus program designed to reduce unfilled teacher absences in largely segregated Black schools with historically low substitute coverage rates. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that incentive pay substantially improved coverage equity and raised student achievement. Changes in labor supply were concentrated among Black and Hispanic substitutes from nearby neighborhoods with experience in incentive schools. Wage elasticity estimates suggest incentives would need to be 50% of daily wages to close fill-rate gaps.

Child care has been in a downward spiral for twenty years and is a main factor exacerbating the growing worker shortage. New attention before and financial aid during the pandemic perhaps slowed the spiral, but it hasn't reversed it. The primary cause of the shortage in Greater Minnesota is simple: family child care providers, who supply the bulk of child care in rural regions, are leaving the field at a much faster rate than people entering it. To better understand what is happening at the local level, the Center for Rural Policy and Development (CRPD) conducted an unscientific survey of economic development officials, local leaders, and other stakeholders around the state in the fall of 2021. The purpose of this report is to identify a sample of projects in progress right now, which will hopefully provide important information on what's being tried, why, and what can be learned from these experiences.

The empirical management literature has found that the education of both managers and the workforce more generally appears to be an important driver of better management practices. This article sets out how such relationships might be conceptualised, and suggests that in a complementarities framework, modern management practices can be thought of as a type of skill-biased technology. It then summarises the literature that has explored the relationships between human capital and surveyed management practices in manufacturing firms and other sectors, highlighting the handful of papers that have found a positive correlation between management practices and measures of local skills supply. It concludes with a discussion of the policy implications that stem from what we know so far, together with avenues for future research that could shed more light on the causal mechanisms at play. [This report was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council through the Centre for Economic Performance, the Programme on Innovation and Diffusion (POID).]

According to a survey by NACAC and IC3 (International Career and College Counseling) Institute, 88 percent of Indian high school counselors believe their administration understands the importance of a dedicated career and college counseling program, and 70 percent agree that their school culture is supportive of counseling. However, many counselors reported barriers to implementing successful counseling programs, including lack of funding, lack of a dedicated counseling function in the school, and difficulty finding qualified professionals to fill counseling positions. Other key findings include: (1) 80 percent of survey respondents employ at least one dedicated counselor. These counselors have responsibilities including helping students explore careers, assisting with course selection, and educating families about college and career counselors for students; (2) Schools located in tier 3 cities are less likely to provide career and counseling services than schools in Tier 1 and, to a lesser extent, Tier 2 cities; (3) Common college counseling activities and services include hosting visits from colleges/universities (80 percent), providing advice and education about standardized testing (79 percent), and providing assistance with college applications (74 percent); (4) Common career counseling activities and services include career aptitude and/or interest assessments (74 percent), career days or career fairs (70 percent), and career development activities in the classroom (67 percent); and (5) Counselors who reported deficits in their school's counseling program cited specific issues, including: counseling is not taken seriously, a need for a counseling curriculum, and a need for more formal training for counselors. [The report was written in collaboration with the IC3 Institute.]

The U.S. manufacturing industry is experiencing a resurgence and faces a growing need for highly skilled workers. Recent reports project that demand for highly-skilled manufacturing workers will outpace supply in coming years, and this shortage may grow as the U.S. manufacturing industry grows and its labor needs shift. Furthermore, manufacturing has traditionally employed a largely white and male workforce, and there is growing interest in bringing a more diverse set of workers into manufacturing. To identify promising strategies to expand the supply of highly skilled manufacturing workers and meet employers' growing skill demands, a group of RAND researchers examined the pipeline between Ohio's postsecondary education system and manufacturing employment in Ohio. The researchers also explored the extent to which workers with manufacturing-related skills or credentials forgo work in the industry. This research brief summarizes the education and employment patterns revealed by the research.

Manufacturing employers often cite challenges to finding and hiring a sufficient number of highly skilled and diverse workers, so it is important to understand how pathways into manufacturing and the retention of manufacturing workers may be improved. The authors of this report address this research gap by examining the pipeline between Ohio's postsecondary education system and the manufacturing workforce. They focus on understanding potential ways to expand the supply of workers and the diversity of the manufacturing workforce. Although Ohio represents a subset of the U.S. manufacturing industry, it has a significant share of manufacturing employment and production. Therefore, it can be instructive for more broadly understanding the challenges and opportunities that workers, employers, and educational institutions in manufacturing face.

The rapidly growing supply of university-educated workers from both immigration and domestic educational institutions, coupled with relatively slack demand for educated labour, has raised concerns about skill use in the Canadian economy. This study uses census data from 2001 to 2016 to compare trends in over-education among recent immigrants and Canadian-born youth. The study showed that only about one-half of the growth in university-educated workers over this 15-year period was matched with growth in jobs requiring a university education. University-educated recent immigrants became more concentrated in jobs requiring less than a university education. In comparison, Canadian-born youth with a university degree became less likely to work in jobs requiring high school or less education.

Digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics and automation are transforming the world of work. Developing the appropriate digital skills in the workforce is an important component in Australia's effort to compete in this rapidly emerging global digital economy. This research explores the current digital skills demand-and-supply situation in Australia for the general workforce (rather than for ICT specialists). The research approach includes a review of international frameworks of digital skills and case studies in the transport, postal and warehousing, and public administration and safety industries. These industries were selected because a key threat to their productivity, and therefore their contribution to the national economy, is a workforce with inadequate digital skills. A survey of human resources, skills and training decision-makers across Australian industry more generally was also undertaken, with specific attention given to the skills impact of digitalisation. The research highlights that a multi-faceted approach from the Australian Government and industry stakeholders is required to enhance digital skills development in the general workforce. To facilitate this, the authors have developed a digital skills framework, whose purpose is to identify digital skills gaps within organisations and to assist in the development of targeted training programs.

The quality of the early environment children experience influences their human capital development. We investigate retention and compensation in the Early Care and Education workforce by merging datasets from three different government agencies in Texas. We employ non-structural methods to compare turnover and pay in Early Care and Education with those in other sectors that employ similar workers. We estimate a dynamic discrete choice occupational model to quantify the labor supply and turnover elasticities in this industry. In addition, we simulate the impact of wage supplementation programs.

A concern in higher education policy is that students are taking longer to graduate. One possible reason for this observation is an increase in off-campus labor market participation among college students. Financial aid may play a role in the labor/study choice of college students--as college becomes more affordable, students my substitute away from work and toward increased study. I use data from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS) to exploit nonlinearity in the Pell Grant formula to estimate a regression kink and regression discontinuity designs. I find that conditional on receiving the minimum of $550, students reduce their labor supply by 0.4 hours per week, which translates to a 2.4 percent decrease in hours worked. Students who receive the average Pell Grant of $2,250 are 7.6 percentage points (or around 12 percent) less likely to work and, if working, supply 5.10 less hours per week, or around 30.67 percent reduction. I find Pell Grants do increase academic achievement, implying that students substitute study time for work.

Media accounts have described kindergarten through 12th grade teaching staff shortages in 2021-2022 that were severe enough to temporarily close schools for in-person instruction in some areas. Although much has been written about the negative impacts of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on teachers, less is known about the extent to which the pandemic is taking a toll on other types of educators, including superintendents. To obtain a national picture of the various types of staffing challenges that districts are facing in the 2021-2022 school year, RAND researchers surveyed 359 district and charter network leaders in the American School District Panel (ASDP) between October 25, 2021, and December 10, 2021. The representative survey results confirm that media attention to the severe staffing crunch in schools this school year is well placed, and maybe all the more so if current and future variants of COVID19 infect even more school staff and students. Beyond the serious staffing concerns for this school year are concerns in future years about a fiscal cliff and a potential increase in superintendent turnover. [For the companion report "District Leaders' Concerns about Mental Health and Political Polarization in Schools: Selected Findings from the Fourth American School District Panel Survey. Data Note: Insights from the American Educator Panels. Research Report. RR-A956-8," see ED617354.]

Policymakers had hoped that the 2021-2022 school year would be a chance to recover from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic--related disruptions to schooling. Instead, media reports of staff shortages, heated or even violent school board meetings, increased student misbehavior, low student and teacher attendance, and enrollment declines suggest increased -- rather than decreased -- problems during this third pandemic school year. To learn about the prevalence of these challenges nationwide, RAND researchers surveyed 359 district and charter network leaders in the American School District Panel between October 25, 2021, and December 10, 2021. Survey results suggest that districts are confronting serious challenges in the 2021-2022 school year that might be getting in the way of student learning. Although some challenges, such as student and staff mental health, are nearly universal across districts, other challenges are more localized. Historically marginalized districts are confronting extra challenges this school year, such as getting students back in school and low teacher attendance, while a higher percentage of historically advantaged districts are encountering political polarization about COVID-19. [For the companion report "Flux in the Educator Labor Market: Acute Staff Shortages and Projected Superintendent Departures. Selected Findings from the Fourth American School District Panel Survey. Data Note: Insights from the American Educator Panels. Research Report. RR-A956-9," see ED617372.]

The term "STEM" (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education refers to teaching and learning in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It typically includes educational activities across all grade levels--from pre-school to post-doctorate--in both formal (e.g., classrooms) and informal (e.g., afterschool programs) settings. Federal policymakers have an active and enduring interest in STEM education, and the topic is frequently raised in federal science, education, workforce, national security, defense, and immigration policy debates. Given policymakers' ongoing interest in the scope and scale of the federal STEM education effort, this report aims to provide an overview of the current and historical landscape of programs and issues in STEM education. The first section of this report examines federal agencies, programs, and funding for STEM education. The second section examines the performance of the U.S. STEM education system and outstanding issues that may be of interest to Congress. The final section of the report includes a list of major acts dealing with STEM education and provides a history of recent legislative efforts. Appendix A contains links to sources of STEM education data, and Appendix B includes descriptions of the federal STEM education effort from selected historical inventories.

"Skills shortage" is often used to describe the difficulty that can arise when trying to match a ready supply of qualified applicants to open positions. To believe the term accurately describes situations where unemployment rates are low and employers have to compete for skilled workers frames the discussion as an issue of supply and demand. However, this framework does not fully address why skills shortages persist (Holzer, 2017; Cappelli, 2014; Hora, Benbow, & Oleson, 2016; Veneri, 1999; Richardson, 2007). This paper argues that employers may want to consider adopting an experimental approach when addressing skills shortages. Using this approach examines the expectations and perceptions of employers as well as how they address their need for skilled labor. Altering their approach may empower employers when addressing chronic or systemic problems trying to find needed skills.

The Montana Department of Labor and Industry (MTDLI) recently published a statewide college report entitled "Meeting State Worker Demand: A Report on the Labor Market Outcomes for Montana Colleges," in collaboration with the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education (OCHE). The report seeks to determine if there are enough students graduating in the right fields to meet Montana's workforce needs now and in the future. It compares the workforce supply being developed in Montana's colleges to expected future employment needs and analyzes workforce outcomes for Montana college graduates. Since the statewide college report was published in May 2017, Montana educators, students, businesses, and policymakers have been using this data to successfully guide workforce development efforts in the state, and to develop new opportunities for cooperation between colleges and businesses. This report is a case study of how Montana has set an example for other states by not just "understanding" its workforce programs, but using this data to drive policy change within the government, postsecondary institutions, and the business community. [This report was prepared with the Montana Department of Labor & Industry.]

In this paper, we examine the effects of receiving a modest Pell Grant on financial aid packages, labor supply while in school, and academic outcomes for community college students. Using administrative data from one state, we compare community college students just above and below the expected family contribution (EFC) cutoff for receiving a Pell Grant. Between 2008 and 2010, students just below the cutoff qualified for an average of $500 in Pell Grants. We find that other financial aid adjusts in ways that vary by institution: students at schools that offer federal loans borrowed more if they just missed the Pell eligibility threshold, but at other schools, students who just missed the cutoff for Pell were compensated with higher state grants. Focusing on the loan-offering schools where students face a discontinuity in total grant aid, we find suggestive evidence that receiving a modest Pell Grant instead of additional loans leads students to reduce labor supply and increase enrollment intensity. We also provide indirect evidence that students' initial enrollment choices are influenced by an offer of Pell Grants versus loans. [For the appendices to this report see ED574820.]

This document was designed as a companion to the full report entitled "The Impact of Pell Grant Eligibility on Community College Students' Financial Aid Packages, Labor Supply, and Academic Outcomes." Provided here are the appendices to the full report as follows: (1) Methods for Choosing Optimal Bandwidths; (2) Gerard, Rokkanen, and Rothe (2016) Bounds; (3) Sensitivity Checks; (4) Probability of Receiving Pell Grant (Left) and Average Amount of Pell Grant (Right) by EFC; (5) Baseline Covariance by EFC--Loan School Only; and (6) Baseline Covariance by EFC--Continuous School Only. [For the full report, see ED574818.]

This report analyses the challenges faced by young people in Serbia in their transition from school to adult life, especially in their labour market integration, and with a particular focus on the most vulnerable groups. Therefore, the report looks at the main causes of youth vulnerability and skills mismatches at younger ages, forecasting of labour market demand and supply with key implications for younger generations, and policy approaches for labour market and social inclusion of young people.

The acceptance of new growth theory relates, in part, to a number of highly touted regional success stories--or what I term "Knowledge Based Economic Areas" (KBEAs) in this and past essays. The United States, and California in particular, is viewed as perhaps the most robust creators of KBEAs, providing an influential model that is visited and revisited by business and government leaders, and other Flagship (or leading national) universities, that wish to replicate their strengths within their own cultural and political terms. While California has a number of unique characteristics, including a robust University of California system with a strong internal academic culture and devotion to public service, the story of its historical and contemporary success as an agent of economic development is closely linked to a number of key contextual factors. These relate to the internal culture, governance and management capacity of major universities in the United States, national investment patterns in R&D, the business environment, including the concentration of Knowledge Based Businesses, the acceptance of risk, and the availability of venture capital, legal variables related to Intellectual Property (IP) and tax policies, the quality of regional workforces, and quality of life factors that are important components for attracting and retaining talent. In most of these KBEAs variables, California has enjoyed an advantage that helps to partially explain the success of the University of California (UC) and other major research universities as agents of economic development. This study focuses on seven contextual variables common to all KBEAs in the United States and much of the world, and with particular attention to the UC system--a network of ten research-intensive campuses. General Principles for a University Governing Board Association of Governing Boards (AGB) are appended.

California is at a crossroads in terms of STEM and health workforce development. On the one hand, California has more available entry-level STEM jobs than any other state in the country and a steadily growing health workforce, giving large segments of its population access to stable careers. On the other hand, California's public colleges and universities rank poorly compared to other states in terms of producing the college graduates needed to fill many of those jobs. Several reasons contribute to California's poor performance in producing STEM and health graduates, including: (1) California sends too few of its high school graduates directly to four-year universities; (2) state funding for higher education is not sufficient to properly maintain and expand STEM and health programs; (3) transfer pathways for community colleges students seeking to major in STEM and health fields are limited; (4) STEM completion rates within the CSU system are relatively low; (5) STEM and health associate degree production within the California Community Colleges is also relatively low; (6) the availability of STEM and health programs within the public higher education system is extremely limited; and (7) racial disparities persist in access to and success in STEM and health programs. The good news is that California is a leader in technological innovation, and has a large and diverse young population that is poised to be the next generation of STEM and health workers needed to meet the state's future economic needs. Recommendations include: (1) Create a statewide plan for higher education; (2) Increase enrollment capacity within California's public universities; (3) Invest in California's public higher education system; (4) Prioritize the development of STEM and health transfer pathways; (5) Improve college readiness and college completion in STEM for CSU students; and (6) Close equity gaps in STEM and health education. Appended are: (1) California's STEM Workforce; (2) California's Health Workforce; (3) Population Estimates for 18-24-year olds; (4) Health and Related Professions Bachelor's Degree Completion Rates Per 1000 in 18-24-year-old Population; (5) Computer Science Bachelor's Degree Completion Rates Per 1000 in 18-24-year-old Population; (6) Engineering Bachelor's Degree Completion Rates Per 1000 in 18-24-year-old Population; (7) The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System Majors Listed Under the Field of Computer Science; (8) The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System Majors Listed Under the Field of Health; and (9) The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System Majors Listed Under the Field of Engineering. [This report was written with contributions from Michele Siqueiros and Audrey Dow. Additional funding for this project was provided by the Sand Hill Foundation and the Vons Foundation.]