Opportunities for work and learning

There are an increasing number of recruitment agencies online and many organisations carry job ads on their corporate pages. However, my feeling is that at the moment the people who are looking for employment through these services are, in the main, accessing them from their current workplaces; in other words these people are employed, not unemployed, and they are also more than likely to work in the IT industry in some capacity or other.

This raises the crucial issue of access and the need for genuinely free and open access to the Internet in libraries, schools and other centres - indeed any and every communication and information-gathering point relevant to communities. However, unless people feel they 'own' that technology, they will not use it. If the Internet is truly to benefit the unemployed and other groups within society, supportive and relevant training in how to use it is also essential, as is relevant content.

There is enormous scope for online tutorials in job search skills, creating CVs and so on, but there is also potential to use the Internet as a delivery medium to teach new skills which will make people more employable in the 21st century. The approach, though, needs to be innovative. With a little imagination the Internet could be used to demonstrate how flexible learning and work practices are now part of our culture, and it could therefore play a vital role in raising awareness of the changing nature of 'work'.