Gay, Robert S., and Michael E. Borus. 1980. "Validating Performance Indicators for Employment and Training Programs." Journal of Human Resources 15(1):29-48.

Proxies are used to indicate the impact of employment and training programs. CETA prime sponsors and the Labor Department rely on these performance indicators for fund allocations. This study correlates eight indicators with the impact on earnings of participation in four types of programs. The study shows that performance indicators presently being used, which are primarily constructed from placement data, provide no useful information for judging relative program effectiveness. Other indicators, particularly changes in weeks in the labor force, weeks employed, and wage rates, while far from perfect, are correlated much more with earnings gain.

The authors are, respectively, Economist, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and Director of the Center for Human Resource Research, The Ohio State University. Major financial support for this study was provided to Gay under Grant No. 21-36-76-01 from the Employment and Training Administration, U.S. Department of Labor. Earlier funding in this area of research was received by Borus under Grant GI-43104 from the RANN Division of that National Science Foundation. The authors are grateful to the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Evaluation, and Research of the U.S. Department of Labor who provided the data for this analysis. They would also like to thank Anne Strees for her expert research assistance. The opinions and views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of any of the mentioned government agencies.

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US ISSN 0022-166X

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