Workforce Data Quality Initiative

Texas’ Workforce Data Quality Initiative aimed to develop a comprehensive system for analysis of workforce and education participation and outcomes. In partnership with the Texas Workforce Commission, the Ray Marshall Center (RMC) is working to build, test, improve, and expand data linkages across linked individual-level, longitudinal education, and workforce records. Through this project, researchers would be able to identify and assess postsecondary pathways and transitions between education, employment, and other outcomes for students exiting the public school system as well as analyze the performance of the human capital development system in Texas, spanning secondary education through postsecondary education, and workforce training and employment.This report seeks to examine and analyze the postsecondary labor market outcomes of Texas high school graduates from the classes of 2008 and 2009. One advantage of looking at these two particular cohorts stems from differences in when they encountered the Great Recession: the class of 2008 graduated prior to the start of the recession in Texas and the class of 2009 graduated immediately after the start of the recession. It is likely that class of 2009 graduates factored in the regional changes in availability of employment as they weighed whether or not to apply for and enroll in college.Texas Workforce CommissionRay Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resource

Immigrants’ changing position in Germany’s labor market institutions

As Germany works to get its refugee population into employment, immigrant labor market assimilation has become a major policy concern. The German economy has undergone significant structural changes since the first cohort of guest workers arrived over a half century ago, with the corporatist features that defined the German model now much weaker. This report examines how this shift towards greater liberalization has affected immigrants in the German labor force relative to natives. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, I find that immigrants’ position in Germany’s labor market institutions changed considerably in the period from 1984 to 2016. Working immigrants were originally more likely to hold permanent contracts, have works council representation, and belong to trade unions than native Germans, but the relationship has reversed in all three cases. During this period, immigrants were 50% more likely to exit union membership than natives after controlling for demographics, labor market events, and industry and occupation. Immigrant-native income and wage gaps have widened, although structural features of the German labor market likely mitigate intergroup inequality. I conclude by discussing refugees’ limited prospects of entering the primary labor market and what policymakers can do to improve them.Public Affair