DirectEmployers Association and the National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA) formed an alliance in March 2007 to provide an employer-funded, jointly-administered National Labor Exchange (NLX).
Working in strict compliance with U.S. Department of Labor guidelines and regulations, JobCentral National Labor Exchange provides employers and states, working together, an online tool to better manage our nation’s vast talent resources. It helps companies build their workforce and comply with State and Federal regulations such as Affirmative Action Program objectives, Office of Federal Contract Compliance (OFCCP) obligations and Veterans hiring goals.
Pam Gerassimides, National Labor Exchange Director and Associate Executive Director, recently authored a post on Rapid
The National Labor Exchange (NLX)
Persistent structural unemployment and continuing layoffs — workforce development professionals are well aware of the grim reality and challenges facing American jobseekers today.
Consistently, media and press ruefully remind us that “there are NO jobs out there for anyone.” This of course is a literary exaggeration. There are always available jobs in an economy such as ours. The Bureau of Labor Statistics in its most recent Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report says approximately 3.4 million job opportunities were available on the last business day of October 2010. A more accurate description or our predicament is to say: “today our supply of jobseekers exceeds our available demand for work.”
Not as catchy for news articles, but it points to one of our system’s primary missions — namely facilitating the national labor exchange by capturing all job opportunities and making them available to the millions of our customers who are unemployed, underemployed or looking for work.
Since March 2007, the National Labor Exchange (NLX) has worked with state workforce agencies toward their mission to do exactly that — facilitate a national labor exchange. From its inception the initiative has added over 8 million unduplicated and current jobs from verified employers into state workforce agency job banks. What has this initiative cost at a time of declining resources? The NLX is offered at no cost to state workforce agencies and its customers; jobseekers and employers.
Think of it as an online network connecting businesses and state workforce agencies in a cost-effective manner to improve labor market efficiency and reflect our nation’s diverse workforce. Over 5,000 large employers and their job opportunities help power the publicly operated state job banks – vastly expanding the number of searchable job opportunities for jobseekers and providing employers the ability to meet hiring goals.
In the reverse, thousands of more small and medium size employers listing with state workforce agency staff power a national site and share with colleague agencies bringing the total number of NLX participating employers to over 100,000.
