Job skills training is a cost-effective strategy for improving employment among individuals who have low income and employment barriers, but few U.S. government-sponsored employment program participants have received such training. To better understand long-term gains from job skills training, this study compared employment and earnings trajectories between program participants who received job skills training and those who received basic services only. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, we estimated 33-year employment and earnings trajectories among U.S. baby-boomer cohorts while accounting for baseline group heterogeneity using inverse propensity score weighting. We found increases in employment rates over the life course, especially among Black women. Job skills training also increased earnings by up to 69.6 % compared to basic services only. Despite the long-term gains in employment and earnings, job skills training participation is not sufficient to address gender as well as racial and ethnic gaps in full-time employment. Findings reinforce the importance of incorporating job skills training as an essential service element of government-sponsored employment programs to improve long-term labor market outcomes among Americans with economic disadvantages.

工作技能培训是改善低收入和就业障碍个人就业的一种经济有效的策略，但很少有美国政府资助的就业计划参与者接受过此类培训。为了更好地了解工作技能培训的长期收益，本研究比较了接受工作技能培训的项目参与者和仅接受基本服务的项目参与者之间的就业和收入轨迹。使用 1979 年全国青年纵向调查的数据，我们估计了美国婴儿潮一代群体 33 年的就业和收入轨迹，同时使用反向倾向得分加权来解释基线群体异质性。我们发现一生中的就业率有所增加，尤其是黑人女性。与仅提供基本服务相比，工作技能培训还使收入增加了 69.6%。尽管就业和收入取得了长期增长，但工作技能培训的参与不足以解决全职就业中的性别以及种族和民族差距。研究结果强调了将工作技能培训作为政府资助的就业计划的基本服务要素的重要性，以改善经济处于劣势的美国人的长期劳动力市场结果。