LINCOLN — The state is using Facebook, “spidering” and “scraping” to better link job-seekers and employers on an updated website that gathers all job listings in Nebraska.
The “NEworks” website was launched in October, but state labor and economic development officials held an official launch Wednesday for the site, which was updated with $2.8 million in federal grants.
The website uses software to search out all job listings posted on Internet, newspaper, government and company sites — a process called “spidering” — then “scrapes” them and posts them on NEworks.
The Nebraska Departments of Labor and Economic Development have also launched a Facebook page to display daily job listing highlights and to drive Facebook “friends” seeking jobs to listings on NEworks. A post Wednesday, for instance, touted 18 new openings at the BNSF Railway.
A study last fall of the state’s economic development programs by Battelle Technology Partnership identified the lack of a “one-stop shop” for all job listings in Nebraska as a weakness.
NEworks addresses that problem, State Economic Development Director Richard Baier said.
One goal of the website, Baier said, is to better connect college students and recent graduates with high-skill occupations, thus preventing them from moving out of the state.
State Labor Commissioner Cathy Lang said the state is required to provide a “public labor exchange” so people seeking to qualify for unemployment benefits can meet requirements to search for new jobs.
NEworks takes that function “out of the dark ages,” she said, by not only pooling all available jobs in Nebraska but also providing other services and information. That includes job training opportunities, how to build a résumé, and the ability to search within a specific ZIP code for a specific job.
Don Wesely, a registered lobbyist for Geo Solutions Inc., the Florida company that did the website update, said while some employers may choose to post jobs directly on the NEworks site, the website also drives traffic to job listings posted by newspapers and other entities that post job openings.
The new website — neworks.nebraska.gov — had 23,830 job openings posted Wednesday.
Contact the writer:
402-473-9584, paul.hammel@owh.com
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