• Career and Education Awareness
• Career and Technical Education
• Data Collection and Analysis
• Disability Employment
• Job Seekers in Transition
• Labor Market Analysis
• Labor Market Economics and Policy
• Long-Term Unemployment
• Older Workers
• Postsecondary Education
• Program Design and Development
• Program Evaluation
• Reemployment
• Research Methodology
• Survey Development and Design
• Trend Analysis
• Virtual Workforce Services
• Work and Family Life
• Workforce/Workplace Diversity and Inclusion
• Workforce Policy
• Workplace Restructuring

 

Project Highlights

Over the past two decades, the Heldrich Center has conducted hundreds of projects. What follows is a list of selected projects.

• The center manages the New Jersey Education to Earnings Data System (NJEEDS), which is New Jersey’s centralized longitudinal data system. By using matched data from various state agencies, NJEEDS seeks to help the public, educators, workforce program operators, and other stakeholders make data-informed decisions to improve student learning and labor market outcomes.
• Examinations of the emerging skills and educational requirements of more than a dozen industries in New Jersey, and the development and distribution of web and print career awareness materials for industries such as biotechnology; health care; transit; and transportation, logistics, and distribution.
• Since late 2015, the Heldrich Center’s New Start Career Network has provided free assistance to more than 6,000 long-term unemployed New Jersey job seekers over the age of 45. The privately funded program offers free access to digital job search tools, webinars, employer engagement, job fairs, and virtual career coaching.
• The Heldrich Center is working with the New Jersey Office of Innovation on the New Jersey Career Network, a program to improve services for job seekers in the state. Major tasks include: developing and managing an online community that connects career coaches for learning and sharing best practices, and the development of a virtual volunteer coaching corps and job seeker network, which will offer unemployed job seekers access to volunteer coaching, job search resources, peer networking, group coaching, and other services.
• The Heldrich Center collaborated with the Federal Reserve on two major initiatives, Transforming U.S. Workforce Development Policies for the 21st Century and Investing in America’s Workforce: Improving Outcomes for Workers and Employers. Those projects produced major national conferences, two edited books, and numerous research publications and webinars.
• Additionally, the Heldrich Center is currently working with Center for Workforce and Economic Opportunity at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and WorkingNation on a series titled Leading Workforce Resurgence. The series feature strategies for responding to the economic recession on businesses, higher education institutions, workers, job seekers, and employers. 
• In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Heldrich Center launched a series of products titled Suddenly Virtual to help public workforce staff adjust to operating virtually. Heldrich Center researchers recently launched Strategically Virtual, which provides guidance to the public workforce system on being more strategic in their virtual operations and services.
• From 2007 to 2012, Heldrich Center researchers developed and managed a national research and technical assistance center to improve the employment outcomes of adults with disabilities in competitive employment.
• In the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks, the Heldrich Center worked with the September 11th Fund as well as community groups and public and private agencies as part of an ambitious program serving unemployed workers in New York City and the greater metropolitan region who had lost their jobs as a result of the attacks. More than 11,000 people received counseling, job retraining, and reemployment services as part of the effort.
• Evaluations of programs seeking to lower the high unemployment and underemployment rates of individuals with disabilities.
• Since 1998, the Heldrich Center has conducted an award-winning national public opinion series titled Work Trends to obtain the views of workers, job seekers, and employers about job satisfaction, the economy, and government. Findings have been reported in almost 40 reports and 2 books, and have been covered widely by the media and in the blogosphere.