Lawmakers Question State Job-Listing Site | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this post is Rick Henderson, who is managing editor for the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

    Officials asked whether government should compete with sites like Monster.com

    RALEIGH  -  A new Commerce Department program designed to consolidate information collected by the state on job openings and career development is expected to reduce taxpayer spending by roughly $800,000 a year compared with outlays on existing programs. But several lawmakers question whether the state should be providing these services in direct competition with private-sector portals such as Monster.com, and if state government should spend more than $1 million a year on a website that's largely invisible to residents who seek its services.

    The General Assembly's Joint Legislative Program Evaluation Oversight Committee received a report in late September on NCWorks Online, a Web-based program that launched in early August to provide information to job-seekers, employers, and the general public about job openings, labor market data, and training resources.

    Roger Shackleford, assistant commerce secretary for workforce solutions, told the committee that the department began considering a way to consolidate this information in 2012, when a report from the committee recommended integrating the technology from eight existing systems in state government.

    The result is NCWorks Online, which Shackleford described as "not just a job-matching system; it's an integrated work force evaluation system." The department looked at various systems around the country and found one vendor that had designed technology adopted by "20 to 25 states," he said. "The vendor customized existing technology for our purposes."

    Catherine Moga Bryant, director of governance and strategic planning in the department's Division of Workforce Solutions, called NCWorks a "one-stop shop for connecting talent to jobs and jobs to talent." The site includes separate portals: tools for job seekers; tools for employers; labor market information; and other resources and services.

    NCWorks allows job seekers to register, post as many as 10 résumés, and look for jobs statewide. Employers also can register to post jobs and review information submitted by job seekers. The site also includes labor market information, including job openings by type and location, salary ranges, experience requirements, and training opportunities.

    Shackleford said that since the site went live in early August, more than 1,400 businesses had posted jobs or inquired about posting on the site and 10,700 job openings had been posted. Meantime, more than 13,000 job seekers have registered, and more than 14,000 résumés have been added to the site.

    Bryant said the system uses "spider" technology to pull jobs into the system. The vendor reviews information on postings daily to prevent duplicate postings or postings that might include "discriminatory language or wording."

    She added that the listings cover jobs offering a wide range of salaries, noting one posting for a banking executive that would pay $200,000 annually.

    Committee members queried Bryant on the variety of job postings on the site. Rep. Edgar Starnes, R-Caldwell, asked if teacher openings were listed. Rep. Jean Farmer-Butterfield, D-Wilson, asked about openings in state government. Bryant answered yes to both.

    But Rep. Tim Moffitt, R-Buncombe, vice chairman of the House Commerce and Job Development Committee, questioned why the state was operating the site. "The private sector is doing this, from CareerBuilder to Monster to Ladders," citing three well-known websites for job seekers. "I would presume that for labor-intensive positions that pay under $30,000 a year this would make sense, but I don't think the state should be competing with private industry, especially for jobs that pay over that amount, because there's a vibrant private industry already doing this and this puts the state in competition with them. I have some concerns about it," he said.

    Moffitt also asked how much NCWorks cost to set up and maintain. Bryant said it cost $300,000 to develop and is expected to cost $1.2 million a year to maintain. (Using Shackleford's estimate of $800,000 annual savings, the state presumably had been spending about $2 million a year to operate the eight "legacy" systems.)

    Rep. David Lewis, R-Harnett, asked how aggressively the state has marketed the site. Bryant said Commerce has conducted "outreach to businesses," the community college system, and the Department of Public Instruction.

    Lewis said, "I haven't seen the site before today." During the hearing, he said he conducted three separate online searches using terms such as, "looking for a job in North Carolina," and NCWorks did not appear near the top of any of the searches. "We need to do something to make folks aware of it," he said.

    Sen. Fletcher Hartsell, R-Cabarrus, the committee's co-chairman, closed that segment of the meeting by saying that NCWorks was "pulled together to do [diversified functions in state government] more efficiently." He also noted that, before taking her position at Commerce, Bryant was a staff member of the committee who had led the evaluation concluding that the consolidation was needed.
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