Jobs in home care are expected to grow by 40 percent in the next decade to meet demand from older adults and people with disabilities. Despite being part of one of the fastest growing industries, many home care workers did not have federal minimum wage and overtime protections until 2015. The Department of Labor extended these protections through a regulation known as the Home Care Rule. We compar...

Benefits associated with telework programs include continuity of operations and reduced employee absences, based on GAO's literature review and the experiences of six selected agencies. The benefits most frequently cited by the selected agencies—the Department of Transportation (DOT), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), General Services Administra...

The Department of Labor (DOL) was required by law to provide employment workshops to veterans and their spouses in a pilot program. In response, DOL used the same 3-day employment workshops for the pilot that it provides to servicemembers on military bases as part of the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) in order to implement the pilot within time and resource constraints, according to DOL offic...

More than 250,000 foreign workers entered the United States through the H-2A (agricultural) and H-2B (nonagricultural) visa programs in fiscal years 2009 through 2013. U.S. employers use a process that involves multiple federal agencies to petition for and employ temporary foreign workers through these visa programs. The Department of State (State) reported that most workers using these visas were...

The Department of Labor's (DOL) Bureau of International Labor Affairs' (ILAB) child labor office and trade and labor office both have guidance for the financial monitoring of grants, but could improve their financial oversight. For example, we found that project managers completed their acceptance or rejection of about 20 percent of quarterly financial reports more than 90 days after receipt from...

Federal agencies need to exercise strong oversight to promote effectiveness and efficiency and prevent waste, fraud, and abuse--especially in a federal procurement program such as this, which is exempt from full and open competition requirements. However, although the AbilityOne Commission is ultimately responsible for overseeing the program, the Commission cannot control how CNAs (1) spend their...

The Department of Defense (DOD) has recently created three new programs to help military spouses obtain employment: (1) the Military Spouse Career Advancement Accounts (MyCAA) tuition assistance program, (2) the Military Spouse Employment Partnership (MSEP), which connects military spouses with employers, (3) and the Military Spouse Career Center, consisting of a call center and a website for mili...

The Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration (EDA) used its standard grant award process to announce, receive, and review applications for the Community Trade Adjustment Assistance (CTAA) program, with modifications related to program eligibility. To comply with legislative requirements, EDA reached out to eligible communities by identifying those with workers or firms already...

This is an e-supplement to GAO-12-930. This e-supplement presents the results of GAO's web-based survey of participant firms in the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) for Firms program. Established in 1962, the TAA for Firms program helps trade-impacted, economically distressed firms make strategic adjustments to help enable them to recover and compete in the global economy. The Department of Comme...

Changes to the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) for Firms program mandated by the Trade and Globalization Adjustment Assistance Act led to program improvements and increased participation, but participation declined when the legislative changes lapsed and the program faced funding uncertainty. The changes resulted in reduced time to certify firms, new performance reporting, and increased particip...