Community workforce training spans public employment programs, adult education, employer-provided learning, and registered apprenticeships. The available U.S. measures show broad reach but also substantial differences in time period, program definition, and participant pathway.
Contents
- Community program reach and barriers
- Adult education enrollment over time
- Adult education pathways by program type
- Workplace training by skill area
- Employer training capacity and investment
- Apprenticeship and connected pathways
Community program reach and barriers
The U.S. Department of Labor’s WIOA Titles I and III National Performance Summary for Program Year 2023 reports nearly 2.7 million participants across WIOA Adult, Dislocated Worker, Youth, and Wagner-Peyser programs. This is a program-year measure: PY 2023 ran from July 1, 2023, through June 30, 2024. The combined participant total was 3.9% higher than in PY 2022.
More than 1.2 million participants in WIOA Title I and III programs reported a barrier to employment during PY 2023. Within the WIOA Adult program, 278,770 participants were served, and low income was reported as a barrier by 68.8% of those participants. These figures describe participation and reported barriers, not a count of all adults who may need training.
The PY 2023 WIOA and Wagner-Peyser Data Book provides additional measures for dislocated-worker services. Dislocated Worker Grants served 113,947 participants nationally in PY 2023. Disaster Recovery Dislocated Worker Grants accounted for 73,663 participants, while Economic Recovery Dislocated Worker Grants accounted for 40,284.
Together, these measures place community workforce training in a wider public-service context. A participant may be counted in a workforce program because of employment disruption, an employment barrier, or a need for career services and training. The measures should therefore be read as program participation statistics rather than as a single unduplicated population of people receiving instruction.
Adult education enrollment over time
The National Center for Education Statistics’ Table 507.20 reports participants in state-administered adult basic education, adult secondary education, and English language acquisition programs. The United States totals show a long decline from 2000 through 2020, followed by an increase in 2021.
| Year | U.S. adult-education participants |
|---|---|
| 2000 | 2,629,643 |
| 2005 | 2,543,953 |
| 2010 | 1,990,118 |
| 2015 | 1,506,955 |
| 2018 | 1,106,949 |
| 2019 | 948,934 |
| 2020 | 627,728 |
| 2021 | 770,179 |
The 2000 measure was 2,629,643 participants, compared with 2,543,953 in 2005 and 1,990,118 in 2010. Participation stood at 1,506,955 in 2015 and 1,106,949 in 2018. The reported total then fell to 948,934 in 2019 and 627,728 in 2020, before reaching 770,179 in 2021.
These are annual participant counts for state-administered adult-education programs, not estimates of the entire U.S. adult population seeking education. The 2020 and 2021 values are especially important to keep separate: the reported measure was 627,728 in 2020 and 770,179 in 2021. The available figures establish the direction of the reported series, but they do not by themselves explain why participation changed.
Adult education pathways by program type
NCES also separates the 2019, 2020, and 2021 totals by program type. In 2019, adult basic education had 447,000 participants, adult secondary education had 79,957, and English language acquisition had 421,977. In 2020, the corresponding counts were 331,707, 73,267, and 222,754.
In 2021, adult basic education had 369,498 participants, adult secondary education had 79,056, and English language acquisition had 321,625. The program categories show that community workforce preparation can involve foundational skills, secondary-level completion, or English language learning.
| Program type | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adult basic education | 447,000 | 331,707 | 369,498 |
| Adult secondary education | 79,957 | 73,267 | 79,056 |
| English language acquisition | 421,977 | 222,754 | 321,625 |
The category counts should not be treated as a separate measure from the annual totals; they describe the program-type breakdown of the same NCES reporting series. They also illustrate why a single adult-education total can conceal different participation patterns. Adult basic education was the largest listed category in each of the three years, while English language acquisition participation was 421,977 in 2019, 222,754 in 2020, and 321,625 in 2021.
Workplace training by skill area
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 1995 Survey of Employer-Provided Training, Table 1 measures employees in establishments with 50 or more employees. It distinguishes formal training received while with the current employer, formal training received within the prior 12 months, and informal training received while with the current employer.
Across all training types, 84.4% of employees received formal training while with their current employer, 69.8% received formal training within the prior 12 months, and 95.8% received informal training while with their current employer. Because these figures come from the 1995 survey, they are historical measures and should not be presented as current workplace-training rates.
Computer procedures, programming, and software training reached 38.4% of employees formally while with their current employer and 23.5% formally within the prior 12 months. Informal training in the same skill area reached 54.3%.
Occupational-safety training reached 58.0% formally while with the current employer and 42.8% formally within the prior 12 months. Informal occupational-safety training reached 47.7%.
Communications, employee-development, and quality training reached 40.2% formally while with the current employer and 22.8% formally within the prior 12 months. Informal training in this combined area reached 32.6%.
The historical figures distinguish cumulative experience with an employer from training during a recent 12-month window. That distinction matters when interpreting community workforce training alongside employer learning: the two settings use different populations, time frames, and definitions of training.
Employer training capacity and investment
The BLS Table 13 on changes in formal training programs reports establishment-level responses from the 1995 survey. Among establishments with 50 or more employees, 65.0% said that the share of employees receiving formal training had increased over the prior three years. The reported increase was 60.1% among establishments with 50–99 employees, 71.0% among those with 100–499 employees, and 75.5% among those with 500 or more employees.
The same table reports that 3.4% of establishments with 50 or more employees said the share receiving formal training had decreased over the prior three years. Among establishments with 500 or more employees, 5.9% reported a decrease. These are reported changes in training coverage, not changes in the number of training hours or in program quality.
| Establishment group | Share reporting increased formal-training coverage | Share with no full-time training personnel |
|---|---|---|
| 50 or more employees | 65.0% | 85.1% |
| 50–99 employees | 60.1% | 94.8% |
| 100–499 employees | 71.0% | Not supplied |
| 500 or more employees | 75.5% | 32.9% |
Training capacity was not necessarily tied to dedicated staff. Among establishments with 50 or more employees, 85.1% reported having no full-time training personnel on their payroll. The share was 94.8% among establishments with 50–99 employees and 32.9% among establishments with 500 or more employees.
Spending also generally moved upward in the reported period. Among establishments with 50 or more employees, 69.2% said money spent on formal training programs had increased over the prior three years. The corresponding share was 66.3% among establishments with 50–99 employees and 75.0% among establishments with 500 or more employees. These employer figures are from 1995 and are not forecasts of present-day investment.
Apprenticeship and connected pathways
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Education: Registered Apprenticeship Industry Factsheet reports that the education industry served nearly 13,000 registered apprentices in FY 2024. Education-industry registered-apprentice service increased 425% over the five years ending in FY 2024, covering FY 2020 through FY 2024.
The same factsheet cites a BLS outlook projecting more than 850,000 annual openings for educational-instruction and library occupations during the projection period cited in the FY 2024 factsheet. This is an annual openings projection, not a count of apprentices or a direct measure of community-program enrollment.
The WIOA Data Book also shows how adult-program participation can connect with other services. In PY 2023, 196,790 WIOA Adult participants exited a program. Among these exiters, 118,342 had any recorded coenrollment. Specific coenrollment counts included 12,721 in the WIOA Dislocated Worker program, 4,047 in the WIOA Youth program, and 111,674 in Wagner-Peyser.
Additional coenrollment counts were 508 in Vocational Rehabilitation and 1,147 in Adult Education. These categories describe recorded coenrollment among WIOA Adult exiters, so they should not be added to the total participant count as though they represented separate people or separate programs without overlap.
Taken together, the apprenticeship, adult-education, and WIOA measures show several routes through community workforce development: public employment services, foundational and language instruction, employer learning, and registered apprenticeship. Their dates and definitions differ, so the most useful comparison is by pathway and measurement period rather than by combining the figures into one total.