Tom's Journal

The job services under Wagner-Peyser since 1933 are one of the few government programs which actually WORK. Employers pay into the state and federal UI trust funds. The money can't be used for anything else. The primary mission is to find people jobs. The secondary mission is to help employers find employees. The third mission is to pay unemployment benefits timely to eligible claimants. Job training and career planning are more recent additions. And they work. Federal audits show most people get back to work within 13 weeks (here in NH, it's 8 weeks). Intensive services are provided to people at high risk of being long-term unemployed. Job counseling and training are provided to those whose jobs have gone overseas. There is intensive training for staff, including internationally-recognized certification programs for workforce professionals. Funding is directly dependent on services provided timely, accurately, legally. So when you say that someone in a UI/job service/works/one-stop turned you away, told you on the spot that you didn't qualify for UI when determination is in fact a 10 day to 42 day process (faster IF an employer provides the information up front on a mass layoff), offered you no job services, you are saying that the system fell apart. But NJ has the same requirements for staff and training as other states, and all of us plug into the same databases, have the same resources, no matter what state we're in. Every person who enters the office, calls on the phone, uses the website has to be accounted for; not only their jobs and benefits but ours depend on it. So there is more to this story, or someone's head ought to roll (or already has).