The John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey was founded in 1997 as a research and policy organization devoted to strengthening New Jersey’s and the nation’s workforce during a time of global economic change. 

The Heldrich Center researches and puts to work strategies that increase worker skills and employability, strengthen the ability of companies to compete, create jobs where they are needed, and improve the quality and performance of the workforce development system. Since its inception, the Heldrich Center has sought to inform employers, union leaders, policymakers, community members, the media, and academic communities about critical workforce and education issues that relate to the emerging global economy.

To better understand the public’s attitudes about work, employers, and the government, and improve workplace practices and policy, the Heldrich Center produces the Work Trends surveys regularly. The surveys poll the public on critical workforce issues facing Americans and American businesses.

For 25 years, the Work Trends series has given tens of thousands of American workers a voice in the national economic policy debates and thereby provides policymakers and employers with reliable insights into how workers across the nation are judging and acting upon the realities of work and the workplace. This site is a collection of the series’ notable projects, highlighting selected findings and topics studied. The Heldrich Center has polled workers and employers on dozens of topics and issues, including:

• Workplace discrimination
• The Great Recession
• The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the labor market
• Long-term unemployment and underemployment
• Retirement, benefits, job satisfaction, and job security
• Technology and artificial intelligence
• Politics and governmental policy

The site will continue to be updated with new surveys, analyses, and blog posts.

Impact

• Working Scared (Or Not at All): The Lost Decade, Great Recession, and Restoring the Shattered American Dream by Carl Van Horn is a comprehensive social science research landscape of the views of American workers about their jobs, the workplace, the economy, and the government’s role in the labor market.
• The Work Trends series received the American Association for Public Opinion Research’s 2013 Policy Impact Award for its work on the Great Recession.
• The series has been featured by major media outlets in hundreds of articles, including television, radio, print/web, and the blogosphere.
• Studies have been referenced by elected representatives, policymakers, and researchers in public testimony and briefings to legislative committees at the state and federal levels of government.
• Work Trends is a proud member of the AAPOR Transparency Initiative which promotes transparency of survey research studies, sponsored by the American Association for Public Opinion Research.” “Work Trends archives its data with the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at Cornell University, making its data and methods available for public use by researchers and organizations.