Volume 6, No.3
Fall 2000

Feature Articles:
The Workforce Info Center (WIC): New Employer and Jobseeker Resource

WIC / Skills Match Link

America's Jobline

Contingent Workers and the New Economy

Archives

The Workforce Info Center
a new way of delivering labor market information
By: Yolanda Y. Harris

Accessing current statistics about Illinois’ workforce has become easier than ever before. No more waiting for distribution of published reports on the workforce. No more searching for workforce statistics in several different publications. Thanks to the Illinois Workforce Info Center, customers, including job seekers, employers and economic professionals, can instantly obtain up-to-date workforce statistics. The Illinois Workforce Info Center is the name of a new internet-based delivery system for labor market or workforce information. Users can access the system, which debuted September 5th, at our new web site http://www.ilworkinfo.com.

According to Henry Jackson, Labor Market Information Director at the Illinois Department of Employment Security, the Workforce Info Center resolves the challenge of making workforce statistics available in a timely manner. “We had a problem with our information not being delivered timely…People had to wait until data were published,” Jackson said. “Now there is an answer to the timeliness question, since data are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We believe that making labor market information accessible over the Internet empowers customers to get the information they need when they need it.”

Such data include: statewide and metropolitan-area wages for more than 700 occupations; two- and ten-year projections for more than 700 occupations in Illinois, its metro areas and workforce investment areas (formerly SDAs); education requirements for occupations; economic profiles of local areas, including workforce investment areas; resources for small businesses; tips for developing resumes and interviewing. The Workforce Info Center also links to IDES’ labor exchange system, Illinois Skills Match.

The fact that workforce information is available on the Internet is not new. The data have been available during the past few years on IDES’ labor market information LMI Source website and for several years in separate publications. What is new is the immediate accessibility of current data and the way the data are presented. Instead of traditionally storing key data sets in a long-chart form and in separate reports, the Workforce Info Center combine key data in easy-to-read tables and graphs. For example, a job seeker looking for information on accountants in the Chicago area, would be given the option of choosing a specific geographical area and a specific occupation via alphabetical or keyword search. The output would be a customized table showing projections, wages, educational requirements and top employing industries for accountants in the Chicago area.

“Before, you had to go to different places (to find the different data sets), there was no comparability,” said Rita Lee, Manager of Project Development and the designer of the Workforce Info Center. “Now it is much easier to find information concerning an occupation. And you may access the website at your convenience.” IDES prides itself in being a national leader with the development of the Workforce Info Center. The foundation of the delivery system is a standardized database structure called America’s Labor Market Information System (ALMIS), created by a consortium of states, including Illinois. All states are required to adapt the ALMIS database for their own use. Other states that have created an Internet-based delivery system for the ALMIS database include Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, Oregon and Washington State. The primary purpose of the database structure is to provide states with a common mechanism for the storage and exchange of state and local labor market information.

A 1995 report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) found that availability of labor market information varied widely from state to state. For example, some states were creating new and innovative labor market information products, while other states remained static. This limited people’s ability to make informed choices in the labor market. The ALMIS database structure, funded by ETA, ushers in more consistency to workforce information across the country. “The concept of it is to provide a standard format or structure for all the various types of data we produce,” said Dixie Sommers, staff person to the Workforce Information Council, a national group charged with governing the development of a national workforce information system.

Because of the ALMIS database structure, Illinois has plans for exchanging labor market data with other neighboring states—such as Iowa and Missouri—in the near future, according to Lee. Jackson said the Workforce Info Center, which received more than 200,000 visits in October alone, works excellently, but is still being refined. He encouraged customers to offer feedback on the website via the website’s customer survey. “We want to understand customers’ needs and be proactive in responding to them,” Jackson said.