Targeting Employment Services

Workforce development programs can serve only a portion of the potentially eligible population. Resource constraints limit the number of job seekers who can be served. Given resource limitations, choices about who gets served depend on decisions by frontline staff in public employment offices. Decision rules can be explicit or implicit. Statistical tools can help make decisions more consistent and effective.

Modern public administration of employment services has applied statistical program assignment to improve cost effectiveness. The process involves developing a statistical profile for potential participants, then targeting services to statistically identified applicants. The first step has sometimes been called “profiling.” Profiling and targeting have been implemented in public employment programs in the United States and tried other countries. Links to examples are provided below.

Targeting Employment Services in the United States

• An Overview of Targeting Employment Services
• Worker Profiling and Reemployment Services (WPRS)
• Frontline Decision Support System (FDSS)
• Targeting Welfare to Work
• Targeting Self-Employment Assistance
• Targeting Reemployment Bonuses
• Personal Reemployment Accounts

Canadian foundations for Targeting Employment Services

• Predicting Long-Term Unemployment in Canada
• Targeting Reemployment Services in Canada (1.3 MB)

European Efforts toward Targeting Employment Services

• Report on the European Profiling Seminar
• A Profiling Model for Denmark
• Statistical Program Assignment in Denmark
• An Overview of Profiling and Targeting in Switzerland
• Statistical Choice of Employment Services in Switzerland
• An Experiment for Targeting of Employment Services in Switzerland

• Background papers on WPRS (19MB)
• Evaluation of WPRS
• Evaluation of WPRS Models (1.5MB)
• Original Michigan WPRS Model
• Guidance to States Reestimating WPRS Profiling Models
• Revised Michigan WPRS Model