For decades, policymakers and practitioners have searched for program models that can increase employment rates and earnings for adults who are considered “hard to employ”: those with limited work experience, low levels of formal education, and other obstacles.

One approach that has been implemented and tested fairly extensively is called “transitional jobs.” Transitional jobs programs offer temporary subsidized jobs that aim to teach participants basic work skills or get a foot in the door with an employer. The programs also help participants address personal issues that impede their ability to work and assist them in finding unsubsidized jobs when the transitional jobs end. A number of transitional jobs programs have been evaluated in the past, with mixed results. Several of them targeted individuals recently released from prison.

Regardless of the longer-term results from the ETJD study, it is important to note that transitional jobs programs are only one particular type of subsidized employment, and that subsidized employment programs may have very different goals. While transitional jobs programs aim to use subsidized employment as a training tool to improve participants’ success in unsubsidized jobs over time, other subsidized employment models are mainly designed to provide opportunities for work and income for people who cannot find jobs in the regular labor market.

Read the full article about employment programs on mdrc.org