Workforce Data Quality Initiative

Abstract

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