Dislocated Workers

This briefing report provides information on services available to dislocated workers under the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) and the Economic Dislocation and Worker Adjustment Assistance (EDWAA) programs. This topic is particularly timely because the North American Free Trade Agreement has fueled concerns about further job losses and about the government's role in helping workers make a smooth transition to new employment. GAO found it difficult to gather basic information on both programs because the Department of Labor does not keep comprehensive, reliable information on program implementation and results. Despite such limitations, GAO found enough information to identify several significant differences between the two programs in the three states it visited--Michigan, New Jersey, and Texas. TAA served a larger proportion of harder-to-place persons and TAA participants received more income support and were more likely to enter longer-term training. Both programs were slow to provide training and neither had comprehensive data on how participants fared after completing the programs. Both programs provided classroom training, but EDWAA supplemented this with on-the-job training. In addition, local areas differed widely in how much they coordinated TAA and EDWAA services. Although officials at the state level coordinated with one another, they and local officials acknowledged that little coordination exists between program staff in many local areas. GAO summarized this report in testimony before Congress; see: Dislocated Workers: Comparison of Programs, by Linda G. Morra, Director of Education and Employment Issues, before the Senate Committee on Finance. GAO/T-HRD-92-57, Sept. 10, 1992 (seven pages).

GAO found that: (1) TAA served a higher proportion of hard-to-place workers, such as female workers, older workers, and less educated workers, than did EDWAA; (2) it could find no pattern in the proportion of minorities served; (3) differences between TAA and EDWAA participants were due to the differences in the workers in industries affected by imports; (4) both programs were slow in providing training to workers, despite studies that showed early training intervention before or at time of layoff lessened the time of unemployment and enhanced subsequent earnings; (5) more TAA participants than EDWAA participants were enrolled in training lasting longer than 26 weeks, because EDWAA seldom provided income support after workers exhausted their unemployment insurance, whereas TAA often provided extended income support; (6) EDWAA provided more on-the-job training than TAA; (7) EDWAA required states to collect placement rate and wage information data on participants, while TAA did not, which made reliable data on TAA participants unavailable; and (8) coordination of services between TAA and EDWAA was limited despite legislative directives.