Career Centers T he vision for the future captured in the Workforce Investment Act is a sort of Grand Central Station for labor market interactions. For employers, employees, job seekers, and education and training providers, all roads ought to lead to and from central, well-known meeting places in every community. The idea is for communities to bring far-flung employment services, education and job training programs, and business services into one network. These centers, known as one-stop career centers, are staffed with trained professionals who provide advice to individuals on navigating the system, conduct skills assessments, and offer referrals and registrations to training and education services. In practical terms, one-stop career centers can offer services to new or existing workers at all stages of their careers.
Virtual centers can be just as effective.
Electronic linkages can bring together information databases, skill assessments, training resources, referrals to community services and more. Using a network available in libraries, in kiosks in shopping malls or schools, or in offices and homes, virtual one-stops provide the same services as real ones. With technical capabilities advancing constantly, the possibilities of one-stops are limited only by people s imaginations. The inadequacies of the current public workforce investment system are most apparent to the professionals who deal with it every day. In the process, they can make their own jobs more satisfying.