The Labor Department is overestimating the number of Job Corps participants who were hired for jobs that matched their government-funded training, which costs an average of more than $15,000 per person, the General Accounting Office has found.
Job Corps is an employment and training program aimed at disadvantaged youths from 16 to 24 years old. The Labor Department spends about $1 billion a year on the program, which serves about 68,000 youths.
During 1996, the Labor Department reported that 62 percent of Job Corps participants were hired for jobs that matched skills received through their government-funded training.
GAO's report, however, questions the validity of about 41 percent of those job placements. Several participants at one Job Corps center, the report noted, received clerical training but got jobs at fast food restaurants, retail stores and a gas station. Several participants at another center were trained in health occupations, but were reported as getting jobs as at various restaurants and a car rental agency.
GAO also found that although the Job Corps reported that 48 percent of its 1996 participants completed their training, only 14 percent of the program participants actually completed all the requirements included in the program's vocational training curricula.
To ensure that the information used to assess Job Corps program performance is accurate and meaningful, GAO recommended that the Labor Department more accurately define and report information on the extent to which program participants complete vocational training and develop a more accurate system of reporting on whether they got training-related jobs.
Labor Department officials agreed to implement the suggestions and emphasized that they did not intend to overstate the Job Corps' performance.
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