The Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) of 1982 established programs to prepare youth and unskilled adults for jobs. JTPA was passed in response to the economic challenges of that time which included the deindustrialization of America and large-scale losses of manufacturing jobs (auto and steel). New programs for dislocated workers were funded, as well as training programs for disadvantaged adults.
From 1983 until June 30, 2000, the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) directed and funded the largest Federal employment training program in the nation, serving dislocated workers, homeless individuals, and economically disadvantaged adults, youths and older workers.
JTPA was enacted through federal legislation in 1982 to "establish programs to prepare youth and unskilled adults for entry into the labor force and to afford job training to those economically disadvantaged individuals and other individuals facing serious barriers to employment (and) who are in special need of such training to obtain productive employment."
Under JTPA, authority for planning job training programs lay with state and local governments. To further increase the effectiveness of job training programs at the local level, JTPA sought to combine the efforts of business and government so that the two could work together in designing, implementing and managing job training programs. JTPA handed oversight responsibility over to the states. It also increased the power of the business community on the Private Industry Councils (51% of PIC members must be from business) and increased the PICs role in controlling workforce development. JTPA utilized community colleges as well as a range of non-profit and community-based training providers to provide services.
JTPA programs were designed to train and place low-income persons in private sector employment. Training programs for adults and youths provide services such as an introduction to the world of work, awareness of what employers expect, remedial education, English skills when needed, vocational, classroom or on-the-job training, job search assistance, and individual counseling. JTPA supported retraining for dislocated workers who lost their jobs because of plant closures or downsizing. Services were also available for the long-term unemployed. JTPA had a human service approach, which focused on identifying an individual's need and providing those services.
Finally, JTPA also funded extensive work experience and remedial education during summer vacation months for youths 14 to 21 years old.
On July 1, 2000 the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998 replaced JTPA. WIA effects many other federally-funded employment and training, literacy and vocational rehabilitation programs, coordinating a vast range of Federally-funded jobs programs offered by many U.S. government departments and agencies.
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