Overview

Looking Local works in partnership with Jobcentre Plus to extend access to their job search service on to TV, mobile, smartphones, Facebook and beyond. This is a national partnership, meaning that people anywhere in the UK can use the service 24/7, on a relevant and accessible devices.

Around 50% of households earning less that £11,5000 are offline and the lower down the socio economic scale you look, the less likely people and homes are to have internet access; so the importance of additional channels - particularly for jobs - is key.

Over 30% of employers use Jobcentre Plus to advertise their vacancies, their database is the largest in the UK and every working day over 10,000 new jobs are posted. Looking Local offers immediate access into the listings and it is one of the most popular services on Looking Local, as the increasing year on year usage proves.

Getting to the right audience

The Jobcentre Plus service on Looking Local logged over 345,000 sessions during 2011; approximately 28,800 a month or 6,650 a week. Each person looked at an average of 46 pages, which shows they are looking at a number of vacancies, and around 50% of sessions were undertaken outside of regular office hours.

A survey run on Looking Local asking users about their job searching habits found that as many as 50% of the 1,500 respondents searched for jobs daily and a further quarter accessed JCP on Looking Local at least once a week. Almost a quarter (23.5%) had already found a new job through the service on TV and an additional 18% had completed applications for jobs but not yet been successful.

Importantly 68% of respondents to the survey confirmed they have no access to PC or broadband and would be unable to search for jobs electronically without the TV based service. A similar number of respondents (70%) explained that the significant benefits to them of using the job search via interactive TV were its convenience and ease of use.

Benefits

• Helps those digitally excluded to reach Jobcentre Plus jobs without needing a PC, broadband or computer skills
• TV allows unlimited, free access to people looking for work to find vacancies without spending money or having to travel
• Helps people back to work, which in turn boosts the local economy and builds skills and self esteem
• Gives equitable access to vacancies
• Goes towards meeting local policy, political and strategic objectives and fits well with the range of services partners offer

JCP Service Features

• Ability to search for a vacancy by job type, by distance, full or part time or by when the vacancy was posted
• Facility to search across the whole country or by region
• Updated in real time with instructions as to how to apply for individual jobs
• Giving access to the same database as is available online, in kiosks across UK Jobcentres and by telephone
• Free on TV, available 24/7 and accessible on the go on mobile and smart phones
• Designed specifically for the UK's most popular games console, the Nintendo Wii
• Easy to navigate, accessibility and usability tested and specifically designed for each device
• A dedicated Android app giving enhanced access to the Jobcentre Plus database will be available on the Android Market in Spring 2012

Comments

• Karen, 44, from Cardiff, found Jobcentre Plus on Sky Interactive by chance and is delighted with the job and extra income she has found as a result.

  Karen needed a part-time job that fitted in with looking after her mother, whom she visits every day. Buses are infrequent where she lives and an expense she can ill afford, so she rarely visited the Job Centre and subsequently often missed any suitably flexible opportunities that came up.

  It was a relief when she discovered Jobcentre Plus on Looking Local and realised how easy it was to navigate the site. Encouraged, she started searching immediately and secured a job which fitted in with her commitments within a couple of days. She is now working as a commercial cleaner three hours a day, has the extra income she wants and can still help her mother when she needs to.

  "Jobcentre Plus is cheap and simple to use and helped me find a job very quickly. I've never used computers so wasn't really aware of internet based job sites and wouldn't feel comfortable using them anyway. I never had the need to use the internet before and now I definitely don't thanks to Looking Local.

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• Simon Lee lives in the Welsh valleys, 22 miles from Cardiff.

  "Looking Local saves me the time and bus fare to go to the Job Centre which is some distance away. I prefer it to the JCP jobs phone line as you have to pay local call rate and I can't afford it. Using Looking Local to job search is very useful, handy and convenient."

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• Gary Marshall, Lea Valley

  "I would just like to thank you for making this service available through the TV. I'm out of work at the moment and no money to travel around to interviews, so this really helps me. Thank you."