The successes of EKCEP’s JobSight one-stop workforce centers were featured on Page One of the Monday, October 13, edition of The Wall Street Journal.

The Wall Street Journal story details how one-stop centers like those in the JobSight network can have a positive impact on the lives of unemployed people. The experience of John Maynard, of Pike County, Ky., is featured prominently in the story. Maynard, a dislocated coal worker, was retrained with federal assistance through the Pike County JobSight and now teaches electronics at a community college.

“We’re delighted to see The Wall Street Journal recognize our efforts,” said Mable Duke, executive director of EKCEP. “We have a steadfast commitment to both sides of the workforce equation—the jobseeker and the employer—and we’re meeting their needs by reshaping, retooling and revamping the business of workforce development.”

The story was headed “Clues to the Cure For Unemployment Begin to Emerge” in most print editions and on the newspaper's website (www.wsj.com). The Journal interviewed Duke and Maynard and gathered information from the EKCEP and JobSight websites while researching the story.

The Journal was led to contact EKCEP about successful one-stop centers as a result of testimony presented on June 18 to the United States Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Subcommittee on Employment, Safety, and Training, in which the Pike County JobSight was used as an example of “best practices.” The testimony was delivered by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), which studied the Pike County JobSight.

In addition, JobSight was featured as one of six model WIA one-stop centers in the southeastern U.S. in “One-Stop South,” a 40-minute video commissioned by the U.S. Department of Labor, Region III. U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao has also publicly recognized by the JobSight network’s successes, in her keynote address at the Workforce Innovation 2002 Conference and again in her Labor Day 2002 address.

Last year, Maynard was one of nine people in Kentucky honored by the state's Cabinet for Workforce Development as an “Outstanding WIA Alumnus” for 2002. To read Maynard's success story, click here.

The October 13 Wall Street Journal story was the final installment in a series entitled, “Left Behind—Casualties of a Changing Job Market.” The article was written by staff writer David Wessel.

The Wall Street Journal has a circulation of more than 1.8 million in the U.S. alone.