Job training programs funded by the city’s Neighborhood Jobs Trust helped double graduates’ incomes to an average hourly wage of nearly $15 per hour, a new report from the Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development shows.

The impact report looked at the success of job training programs over the course of 2014 and 2015, and determined that providing skills training for low-income Boston residents in industries ranging from hospitality to healthcare helped participants find higher-paying jobs with benefits and opportunities for advancement.....

.....A recent article in The New York Times looked at the preliminary assessment of an experiment called WorkAdvance, commissioned by the New York City government and funded in part by a federal grant.

The assessment found that the sector-specific job training programs WorkAdvance offered low-income workers in New York City, as well as in parts of Ohio and Oklahoma, from 2011 to 2013 helped workers earn 14 percent more on average after two years than workers in a control group who did not have access to the programs.

Like Boston’s programs, WorkAdvance communicated with local employers to ensure the training focused on skills needed in the most promising sectors like information technology and healthcare. Some of the NJT-funded programs also offered financial education and asset building opportunities for participants, who were predominantly located in neighborhoods like Dorchester, Mattapan, and Roxbury.

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