Around the world, many people struggle to find work or do not make enough income to get by even when employed. While global unemployment rates reached record lows in 2024, women and youth continued to face high unemployment, and many workers are stuck in low-paying or low-quality jobs. In the United States, workers without college degrees often struggle to secure jobs that pay well. Yet many businesses report the opposite problem: 74 percent of employers in a global survey said they can’t find skilled candidates. With the right skills, job seekers are in a better position to find and keep a rewarding job, while businesses can gain the workforce they need to grow.  

In the United States, sector-specific job training programs with core features help people land higher-paying jobs and earn more. Designed to train job seekers for employment in specific industries with strong hiring demand and opportunities for career growth, these industry-tailored programs often deliver lasting increases in incomes. The most successful programs combine effective features: (1) an eligibility screening for traits like basic skills and motivation, (2) skills training that leads to certification or credentials and is targeted to a specific in-demand high-paying industry such as health care or IT, (3) soft skills training in areas like time management, (4) additional services such as counseling or job placement support, (5) strong connections to employers, and sometimes (6) additional financial support.

Job training programs designed to help job seekers in low- and middle-income countries have had mixed success at raising incomes. Some of the promising features of these programs include incorporating practical work experience, teaching a mix of soft skills and hard skills, and providing an industry-recognized certificate that serves as a useful signal to employers about a job seeker’s qualifications. Yet these results reflect not only differences in program design and implementation quality, but also very different job markets that people face when they finish these programs. 

Practitioners and researchers should test sectoral training models in other places, including in low- and middle-income countries. They should learn if the sectoral employment model from the United States that focuses on high-paying and in-demand sectors can work in settings with different (and often less well-paying) job opportunities. In low- and middle-income countries, workers are often self-employed, many jobs are informal, and businesses tend to be small. If organizations can adapt sectoral training models to identify the right sectors to focus on and help people transition into better paying work, it has the potential to open doors for job seekers in these places.